The First Casualty of War
by idon'tedit
Summary: is innocence. How does a person change when they have lost their innocence? Hermione Granger was changed by the war and so was Ronald Weasley, what does that mean for them? Severus Snape was changed by the war, but he was changed even more by surviving it. What does the future hold for these people now that they have been so drastically altered? M for safety.
1. Chapter 1

**The moment you enter the warzone, you have to accept the fact that your life has been taken away from you, if you found that you survived the war, it means God has given it back to you**

**- Unknown**

* * *

It had been an unexpected twist of fate when Severus Snape had opened his eyes and once again saw the inside of the shrieking shack. For a moment he felt only confusion, but slowly other sensations began to come back to him. He was aware on a vague level that he was in pain, but it seemed to be coming to him through a hazy filter. Intellectually he knew that was because the snake venom was damaging his nerve endings, but he found that he could not be upset by that. He was strangely at peace even though he had always thought he would die before the war had ended. If he were to have guessed what he would feel after having giving his deepest secrets away to Harry Potter only to live to see what the prat would do with it, he would have assumed he would be terribly angry but he found he was nonplussed.

With a slowness that told of how injured he was he brought his hand up to touch his throat and found that there was no wound present. Still, he did not feel much in response to that. He pulled on a deep strength and rolled his unresponsive body until he was lying on his stomach in the dried pool of his own blood. When the world stopped spinning he saw that there was a discarded potion vial lying beside him on the floor.

He focused his attention on the bottle, and he saw a familiar print on the label. He wondered vaguely when Miss Granger had even been present in the shack as he read their labels. Apparently she had tended his wounds with an entire bottle of dittany before disappearing. In the heat of war he couldn't really blame her for forgetting that such a high dose of dittany caused lethargy and complacency in the patient. He wondered vaguely if she had done that on purpose, and if he weren't so very tired he might have smiled and the thought of it.

Instead he focused all of his strength on attempting to pull himself up off of the floor. He heaved and he struggled, but his body would hardly follow his instructions. He had only managed to get his legs under him so that he was crouched awkwardly on the ground when he heard voices in the tunnel that lead to the shrieking shack.

"Hermione, this is idiotic," the angry voice of Ronald Weasley shouted. "I should be with my family right now, not chasing after you on some stupid mission to tend a dead body."

"Ron, I have to do this," the girl shouted back at him, her voice much closer than his had been.

"No you don't," he shouted back, his voice growing closer. "Leave the bastard for the ministry to deal with, and come back with me!"

"We can go back in just a second," she said in a placating voice, no longer yelling, but close enough to the hidden door that Severus could hear her nearly perfectly. "Just let me do this first."

"Hermione," the boy answered, and it sounded like he had begun to cry. "Why are you doing this?'"

The girl didn't answer. There was a bit of silence, and then Severus heard the tinkling sound of several vials of potion rolling across the floor. It remained quiet after that, save for the sound of footsteps leading away from the door.

"Nevermind Ron," she answered him quietly. "We can go back, it's okay."

Severus listened to Miss Granger comforting Mr. Weasley as the pair of them shuffled away, and tried to find the strength to pull himself over to the potions the girl had thrown to him. He didn't know why the girl cared if he lived or died, nor why she would put so much effort in to trying to heal him when her closest friend was fighting her every step of the way but he wasn't about to look a gift horse in the mouth.

So he drew on his last reserves of strength and he drug his tired body over to the three vials that were sitting just inside the door. He could have sung his relief when he saw that she had brought him a bottle of blood replenishing potion, a strength potion, and an invigorating draught. With those three potions he could walk out of this little shack under his own power, and it was even better that no one had seen him since he had been attacked. For all the wizarding world needed to know he had died in this little shack. He would no longer be beholden to these people. He was free.

And so Severus Snape consumed the three potions he had been gifted by Hermione Granger, and found that he could pull himself up off of the floor and retrieve his wand with considerably less effort. As soon as he had his wand in hand he focused his mind on the mental image of his home in Spinner's End and with a resounding crack he disappeared from the shrieking shack.

* * *

Home was not the word he thought of when he walked into the house that had raised him. Anything associated with the life he had been living for the last twenty years was so tainted with depression that he could hardly stand to look at it, but for tonight it would do. He took his time showering, slowly washing the evidence of his brush with death and allowing the warm water to further relax the pain from his limbs.

When he could think more clearly he went in search of his private potion stores. He still had antivenin left over from when he had helped the healers bring Arthur Weasley back from the brink, and he had to hope that same potion might help restore some of the damage done to his nerves, if not at least halting any progressing damage. He took that as well as a pain potion and then he sought out his bed. His eyes were just beginning to droop from the heavy dose of pain reliever he had taken when he slipped underneath the blankets.

The world slipped away from him quickly, but he was surprised to find himself in a dream world that was fuzzy around the edges. There was a strange mist around him that gave it away as a dream, but he couldn't have been surer that it was a dream when Hermione Granger appeared at his side. They were in an attic, and he was reclined on a cot with recently healed wounds. She was holding his hand, and whispering to him but he could not hear anything that she said. Instead he focused on how caring she was, and how soft her hands were as they held his. Her tears rained down on his white shirt and he wanted nothing more than to reach out and comfort her, but he could not move.

Eventually the morning came, and in the light of day the dream slowly faded away taking his confusion with it. Severus rose with a new lease on life, and he dressed for the first time in more years than he cared to count in something other than a frock coat. He pulled on his slacks with an olive green oxford, and he began throwing together the things he had collected over the years for an escape plan. He packed clothes, emergency potions, and the documents connected to the muggle bank account he had siphoned slowly out of his Gringotts account over the last few years.

It wasn't much to start a new life with, but it was enough to get him out of England and that was all he needed. He had given everything to this war, and it was time he started taking a few things back for himself. It was time to grasp his freedom with both hands and run with it.


	2. Chapter 2

**Be mindful what you toss away, be careful what you push away, and think hard before walking away.**

**- Anonymous**

* * *

Hermione and Ron had started fighting long before they had even been friends, so there was nothing surprising about a fight. What was surprising was how painful those fights were when they were in a committed relationship. A simple, or even not so simple, fight between friends only stung for a moment and then it passed. But the wounds inflicted by a lover never seemed to stop aching, not entirely.

Their love for one another had boiled over during the final conflict, and it had been consummated while they both drowned in a river of grief. It had been a bit of a whirlwind in reality. One moment they had been roughing it in the wilderness, the next they were kissing in the heat of battle, and what felt just a second after that they were moving into a flat together having run off during the night to marry without a crowd watching them.

No matter how much that particular decision might have hurt their respective parents, doing things while people were not watching them seemed to be the only thing that Ron and Hermione didn't fight about. They didn't necessarily agree on it, but they didn't fight about it. Hermione was not interested in basking in the limelight that had been thrust upon them for the part they had played in the war. While Ron loved having everyone's attention turned toward him, he respected the fact that Hermione was no interested in joining him on the front cover of the Prophet.

The list of things that Hermione and Ron fought about were much longer, but topping the list of frequents fights was the first fight they had after sharing their first kiss. The two of them fought about Severus Snape constantly. Ron didn't want to hear Hermione's theories about whether or not the man had actually died, and Hermione could not stand to hear Ron's varied opinions of just how evil the man had been. To Ron it didn't seem to matter that Severus had been cleared of all charges and proved to have been on the side of the light for the thick of it, and Hermione had absolutely no patience for hearing how she should be more focused on creating a family with her husband and not on wondering what had happened to a dead man.

Hermione found her refuge from her quarrels with Ron in her best friend Harry Potter, and occasionally through his wife Ginny. Whenever the tense air became too thick, she would escape to Grimmauld place, and focus her mind on having tea and simple conversation with her friends. She would never breath a word of troubles in paradise of course. For all anyone knew, she was a happily married wife, and she and Ron expected to find themselves pregnant any day. She couldn't find the words to tell them that she was miserable, or that she had gone onto birth control in order to avoid birthing the child of a man she suspected didn't intend to stay with her.

Ron found his refuge in other woman. He made a point to let his wife things that he worked late hours, and with every fight they had he got farther from admitting to her that he really didn't work that late at all. He had found the one benefit to stardom that neither Harry nor Hermione had paid much attention to: affection. His wife might be a harpy who seemed absolutely incapable of giving him a child or the real love and affection that he craved, but that didn't mean he couldn't find it in a witch with certain qualities.

* * *

Hermione was sitting alone at the dinner table once again. She tried, really tried not to be upset. She had waited until past seven to even begin preparing the meal, taking her time so it would not be plated and ready for consumption until after eight. Yet here it was almost ten in the evening, and she was sitting alone at the table, staring at a cold meal. She was a witch, so of course she could have cast a stasis or even a warming spell to preserve the meal, but she no longer saw the point. Instead, she plucked a bottle of wine from the rack on the wall, a glass from the cabinet, and she made her way out of the kitchen leaving the meal to be dealt with at another time.

She pulled the cork from the bottle, and let it breathe on the bathroom counter while she began drawing a bath. The house was silent around her, without even the quiet sounds of Crookshanks moving about. She automatically stifled the rage she felt at Ron's absolute refusal to allow her so much as a proper burial for her familiar after his passing, let alone allowing her to get another cat.

She poured herself a glass of wine as she tried not to think about how a vein had pulsed in Ron's forehead as he shouted that if she needed someone to care for so badly she could pay a little more attention to her husband or perhaps finally give him a child. She took a long pull from her wine glass before sliding into the warm water and the frothy bubbles. There was one blissful moment where she was ensconced in warm water, with her arm hanging absently over the side of the tub with a gentle grasp on her wine glass, simply enjoying the peace around her.

And then Ronald came home. She knew the second he had entered the house of course, because he insisted on apparating into the kitchen. No heed was paid to his poor aim or how terribly loud he was, but some things never changed did they? She stifled a sigh, and sunk deeper into bathtub allowing the bubbles to obscure her chin and mouth.

"Couldn't even keep dinner warm," she heard him grumbling over the clinking of dishes as he threw them haphazardly into the sink. "Probably got her nose shoved in a bloody book again."

She felt her hackles rise, but she simply finished her glass of wine before gently setting the glass on the wire shelf beside the tube and allowing herself to slip completely beneath the surface of the water. Ron was clearly spoiling for a fight and she simply wasn't interested tonight. She held her breath and stayed beneath the surface until she felt the vibrations and heard the distant sound of Ron stomping into the bathroom. Reluctantly she began to sit up, but before she could emerge from beneath the water Ron's hand latched onto her shoulder and wretched her up. She spluttered wiping the water from her eyes as he glowered down at her.

"What the bloody hell are you doing?" he shouted at her before turning toward the counter and swiping up the bottle of wine. "Is this the bottle my mother bought us for our second anniversary?"

"I'm not sure," Hermione admitted as she fumbled for the towel hanging off the end of the wire shelf. "I just grabbed a red, I didn't even really look much at the label to be honest."

"Of all the times for a bookworm to decide not to read," he snapped before tossing the bottle into the sink and shattering it. "That bottle was supposed to be saved until our fiftieth anniversary!"

If Hermione hadn't been frozen mid flinch, she might have pointed out that they could have saved the rest if he hadn't just ruined it. Instead she stood from the tub, wrapping the towel securely around herself, and made a point to avoid eye contact with him while she stepped onto the bath mat. Instead she turned to him with her chin lowered, barely meeting his gaze.

"I'm sorry," she sighed quietly. "Is there any way for me to make I up to you?"

Ron quickly forgot about dinner as well as the wine, but Hermione did not.

* * *

"I think you could make money if you sold these Hermione," Ginny said as she reached for the canvas Hermione was handing her.

"I just need them out of the house," Hermione sad lightly, trying not to think about yet another row she and Ron had about her painting. "I don't want to sell them, I just want to put them in storage and get a little distance from them."

"They're good though," Ginny pushed. "I mean a bit dark obviously, but very well done. Anyone who fought in the war would be able to relate to these paintings."

"I'm not comfortable selling them," Hermione sighed, again not saying that she'd have to find a believable lie about where the money had come from if she wanted to avoid another fight. "Storage is the right choice, for now."

"Ok, you don't want to sell, I get it," Ginny sighed. "But seriously, if you're only going to put them in storage, can I put this one up at Grimmauld place?"

"That's a little morbid don't you think?" Hermione hedged.

She stared at the oval canvas that had been the cause of the largest row between her and her husband. It had also been one of the most cathartic paintings she had made. It was predominately red, showing the anger and pain that such a memory brought up in her. The problem for Ron was that Severus Snape took up most of the painting. It didn't seem to matter to her husband that she was trying to process having witnessed the man bearing the brunt of so much pain and doing nothing to help him. To her the image of Voldemort torturing Severus Snape was a still image of what a majority of the war had boiled down to. For her the painting was an attempt to let go of the pain. To Ron it was a reminder that when the moment came for a choice at the end of battle, she had chosen Snape over him.

"I think it's certainly intense, but it captures something that should never be forgotten," Ginny said quietly, her eyes never leaving the painting. "Harry would never forgive me if I let you shove this in a storage unit somewhere."

"Go ahead, but put it somewhere Ron won't see it," Hermione said dismissively as she began shoving the other paintings into the back of the car she had rented for the day.

Hermione almost wished she hadn't begun painting when she thought of all the trouble it had caused between her and her husband, and yet the thought of giving it up was tearing her apart. A lead weight settled in her stomach, and she was certain that the nightmares were going to start again.

* * *

She hadn't been wrong. She had gone to bed alone, again, and it hadn't taken her long to slip into the nightmares that still plagued her years later. She was jerked out of the world full of deadly snakes and gasped awake to find herself incased in Ron's arms. She gratefully wrapped her arms around him, and pulled herself tightly against him. She breathed in his scent with the thought of comforting herself, but then she stiffened when her nose was filled with the scent of another woman's cologne.

"What's wrong," he asked as she shoved him off of her, and threw herself out of bed.

She stopped moving, other than to turn and stare at him. She was at a loss for words. Was he actually asking him what was wrong? Was he that stupid?

"You'd think after five years of marriage you'd at least have the decency to rid yourself of the smell of your latest floozy before you join me in our bed!" she shouted at him, grabbing her robe and throwing it hastily over her body.

"Seriously Mi?" he shouted, and she cringed at the once endearing nickname. "I try to comfort you after a nightmare, and that's what you want to say to me?"

She stood her ground as he lunged up off the bed, but she was a bit afraid of how angry he looked now.

"I thank you for waking me up," she said stiffly. "But I won't thank you for besmirching our marital bed."

"Oh for the love of Merlin," he snapped, drawing closer. "You're smelling Ginny's perfume, I went over to Grimmuald place for a couple drinks."

"Your sister would be offended to hear you insinuate she wears a whore's perfume," Hermione snapped.

Apparently that was the last straw. Ron's face went redder than his hair, and then he slapped her.

"Get out," she shouted at him, cradling her cheek and fighting not to cry. He obeyed immediately, his face torn somewhere between anger and shock, and suddenly she found herself alone. What had happened to them? When had they changed so much? When had they turned into these people who hated each other so much?


	3. Chapter 3

"**Sometimes it's the smallest decisions that can change your life forever."**

**- Keri Russell**

* * *

Things changed between Hermione and Ron after that night in the bedroom. Ron made an effort to stop seeing other woman, and really tried to be a better husband to Hermione. And she put all of the effort she could into saving their marriage, but at the end of the day the best she could do to preserve their marriage was not leave him. She couldn't seem to find it in her to love him like she once had, but then again she didn't seem to have the energy for much else anymore either.

Ron apologized to her profusely. There were flowers, and candy, and even jewelry, and so even though she suddenly found that she flinched every time he moved too quickly, Hermione told him that everything was fine and that she had forgiven him. Because she had verbally forgiven him, she was expected to act as a wife does, and the excuse of I'm too tired tonight was not good enough.

"Are you still mad at me?" he asked her quietly in the darkness of their bedroom.

"No Ron," she sighed, so bone tired that the act of opening her jaw seemed like too much work.

"You weren't really paying much attention just now," he said, awkwardly referencing the sorry excuse for sex that they had just had. "It just seems like you might still be mad."

"I'm just so tired Ron," she moaned, pulling the blanket tight against her. "I'm so tired that I can't even think straight. It wasn't anything to do with you, I promise."

"Are they overworking you at the ministry," he asked, and she was surprised to hear how concerned he sounded.

When had they become so estranged that her husband actually caring about her would seem odd? Her heart soften just the tiniest bit when he started running his fingers through her hair while he waited for the answer.

"I don't know," she admitted with a sigh as she slumped back against his chest. "I don't feel like my work has gotten any harder. It just seemed like I am working twice as much as I used to. Everything makes me so incredibly tired."

"Sleep now then," he whispered, placing a light kiss on her hair. "Sleep now, and in the morning we can talk about taking a vacation so you can get some rest."

She heeded his instruction and fell asleep almost immediately. Ron lay awake for a long time watching her, and he wondered how they had gotten to this point. When had they become two people who lived in the same house instead of husband and wife? Even in school Hermione wouldn't have reached such a point of exhaustion without even mentioning that she had been tired. She certainly wouldn't have allowed him to make love to her as many times and as many ways as he had without saying something. What had happened to them?

He had happened to them he thought to himself as he rolled over and buried his face in the pillow. In a fit of anger he had lashed out and hit his wife, and even though she told him everything was fine, she was so afraid of him that she wouldn't even admit that she was too tired to have sex with him. What had he done?

* * *

Hermione and Ron did go on a vacation. They spent two weeks in Southern France, away from work, mostly just resting, but Hermione didn't get any better. She continued to be tired, and Ron noted that she seemed to be going to the bathroom much more frequently. He thought it would be odd for him to mention that to her, so instead he waited for her to say something about it and instead he went to have tea with his mother.

"I think she might be really sick, and she just isn't telling me," he told his tea cup, unable to make eye contact with his mother.

"I'm sure if it were anything bad she would say something Ron," she comforted. "So let's think about this rationally. What are her symptoms?"

"Well the only thing she has actually told me about is being tired," Ron answered, swirling his tea around in the cup. "I've noticed that she's been going to the bathroom a lot though. Sometimes it sounds like she's getting sick in there."

"Any particular time of day?" his other pushed, pouring more tea into her own cup.

"All times, that's what I mean" he answered, looking up in confusion. "She's constantly going to the bathroom."

"I mean the vomiting, does it happen randomly or at certain times," she clarified.

"Dunno," he sighed, thinking hard about it. "I guess so. Afternoons?"

"And has she gained any weight?" Molly asked, her brow arching slightly.

"What?" Ron asked, his eyes jumping up to meet hers in his confusion. "Maybe a little actually. Not in a bad way of course. She's just filling out or whatever."

"Sounds to me like she might be pregnant," Molly smiled.

"Oh Mum, do you think?" he asked, his eyes lighting up and a smile breaking out on his face. "We've been trying for so long."

"I think the two of you need to make an appointment with a healer Ronnie," she beamed reaching out to pat his hand encouragingly. "I bet Hermione is terribly worried right about now, and knowing it's a baby would probably make her feel much better. Not to mention that prenatal potions will help with the fatigue."

"Thanks Mum," he beamed barely managing to fully stand up from the table before he apparated away.

* * *

"You made an appointment already?" Hermione asked groggily, still not quite awake from the nap Ron had interrupted.

"Well I thought it was a good idea to get in right away, and you were asleep when I came home so I just did it," he shrugged. "It's not until tomorrow, so we'll have to take some time off work again, but I thought you'd like to know."

"You didn't even ask me first," she pointed out sitting up and pushing the blankets off of her.

"Well I assumed you'd want to go." He hedged. "You do want to go don't you?"

"Not for an appointment about pregnancy," she grumbled swinging her legs off of the mattress and hauling herself to her feet. "I can't be pregnant Ron, I'm on my period right now."

"Are you sure it's a period," he said, his face looking stricken. "What if something's wrong with the baby? Maybe we should go to the emergency ward."

"Calm down Ron," Hermione said as soothingly as she could, halting in her progress to leave the room when she saw how upset he was. "We'll go to the appointment tomorrow, and you'll see that everything is fine. For now I am going to go take a bath, my cramps are really bothering me."

Ron watched her leave, and he wondered if he should have his mother come over. Was it possible that it was just a period? It didn't make sense, if she was showing so many signs of pregnancy, she had to be pregnant didn't she? Maybe it really was something else. Ron felt sick to his stomach, and it occurred to him he had wasted years not appreciating his wife, and now he could be losing time. She could be seriously ill. _It's just a baby_ he kept repeating to himself until he felt calm once more.

* * *

"I'm sorry I don't think I heard you right," Hermione said, trying to hear over the roar in her ears, and focus beyond Ron bouncing happily at her side.

"I said the results indicate that you are in fact pregnant Mrs. Weasley," the motherly looking healer said again still offering her a bright smile.

"That isn't possible," Hermione argued, folding her arms around herself in an effort to comfort herself as her world spun out of balance around her. "I've taken birth control religiously for five years. I cannot possibly be pregnant."

"What?" Ron asked, the bouncing stopping immediately. "You've been what?"

Hermione could see the color rising in his ears, and she realized her mistake. For just a moment she had forgotten that Ron was in the room, and she had blurted the one secret he was never supposed to have learned about.

"I-I I've been taking birth control," she stammered, her heart pounding in her chest.

"We have been trying for five years!" he shouted at her stepping away from where he had been standing at the head of the exam table. "Well I guess I've been trying to get pregnant for five years, and you've just been trying to give me a bloody aneurism!"

"Mr. Weasley, perhaps you could use a bit of air," the healer interrupted before Ron could really get going. "Why don't you go for a bit tea, and I'll send someone to find you in a little while."

"Don't bother," he snapped bustling over to the door. "I'm going home. I don't want to see her face."

And just like that Hermione was alone with the healer, and Ron was probably breaking things in their apartment.

"Healer Wheeler, I need you to run your tests again," Hermione said as calmly as she could manage. "I can't be pregnant."

"I can run the tests again if that's what you want," the healer nodded with a look that clearly said she though Hermione was crazy.

* * *

Two hours and several tests later Hermione was sitting on the exam table once more, and facing three healers instead of just once. Each of them had a grim face, and there was an air of defeat in the room. Hermione couldn't help but feel a bit panicked when faced with such a sight, but she also felt rather sure she had been right that it wasn't a pregnancy either.

"With more extensive testing we have concluded that you are not pregnant." healer Wheeler explained. "I've called in healer Siesta and healer Michaels to help me explain."

"It appears that you have ovarian cancer," the one who had been indicated as healer Michaels said. "I have some minor knowledge of muggle medicine, so I know enough to say that it is likely stage three."

"How many stages are there?" Hermione asked with a detached curiosity.

"There are four stages," healer Michaels explained.

"So it's bad then," Hermione breathed.

"It is substantial," he answered softly. "The cancer appears to have spread, so that in addition to your ovaries, your uterus as well as your cervix are showing signs of being affected by the cancer."

"How do you treat it?" Hermione asked quietly.

"Cancer is something that is rarely seen in witches and wizards," healer Siesta said carefully. "The few cases we've seen here at St. Mungo's have been in muggleborns, and they've been so few and far between that we haven't developed a very reliable treatment plan. Our recommended course of treatment is for you to see an unclegist."

"She means oncologist," healer Michaels interjected with a nervous glance at who Hermione assumed must have been his superior.

"So you're referring me to a muggle doctor," Hermione said quietly, wondering vaguely why she felt so numb.

"Unfortunately there isn't anything we would be able to do for you other than ease your pain," healer Michaels answered with a sad smile. "At least with a muggle doctor there is a chance of recovery."

"A chance," Hermione repeated, feeling a sting in her eyes but knowing she wouldn't cry, not yet. "As in, even with a muggle doctor I might still die?"

"Stage three ovarian cancer is very serious," healer Michaels said seriously. "It has moved beyond just your ovaries and pervaded your abdomen. With surgery and chemotherapy you may see a full recovery, but that isn't something I could promise you."

"Okay, thank you," Hermione said distractedly as she tried to regain feeling in her limbs. "I think I'd like to change back into my clothes then."

"Do you want us to call anyone for you," healer Wheeler asked as the other two left. "Perhaps your husband?"

"No thank you," Hermione sighed, reaching for her robes. "I'd like to be alone now."

"Yes Mrs. Weasley," she said quietly, and then she slipped from the room as well.

* * *

Hermione had dressed and left the hospital, and still no feeling seemed to have returned to her. She couldn't seem to feel her body, and emotionally she felt frozen. Cancer was an awfully big word, and she couldn't begin to fathom it. She couldn't begin to form a thought process on how to tell Ron about it.

_Ron_ she thought with a jolt. He was already so angry with her, what was he going to think now. The first bit of worry began to flicker through her as she took the first available floo back to her apartment. While she spun past the different grates she attempted to gather her courage. All of it fled entirely when she stepped out of the fireplace and she saw a very angry Ron piling her clothes in a heap before the hearth.

"What are you doing," she asked in a breathy voice, causing him to turn around and face her.

"I'm gathering your things," he snapped, running his hand through his hair, and immediately drawing her attention to the fact that he wasn't wearing his wedding ring anymore. "I want you out of my house."

"This is our house," she replied in shock. "And I think you might be overreacting."

"Overreacting?" he roared. "You've been lying to me for years! All I asked for was a baby."

"I can't give you a baby," she said in a choked voice, trying to gather her courage to tell him what she had just learned.

"No, it's not that you can't," he snapped. "It's that you won't give me a baby. You've been telling me for years that you wanted to do this, and it has been a lie."

"Well you'd know all about lies wouldn't you Ronald," she snapped back. "Is it really that unbelievable that I wouldn't want to have a child with a man who is cheating on me?"

"I am not cheating on you," he bellowed, throwing the last of her clothes on the ground and clenching his fists at his sides.

"No, of course not," she snapped back, her body suddenly flooding with all of the emotion that had been held back since she had heard her death sentence. "You stopped sleeping around in an effort to become a better husband after you hit your wife."

"Oh you have got to be kidding me," he growled kicking at her clothes. "Yes, I messed up. Once. And I have apologized profusely since then. That doesn't even compare to what you've been doing."

"I didn't hurt anyone," Hermione yelled back. "I was protecting both of us as well as any children that might have been conceived. But that doesn't even matter anymore does it? There aren't going to be any children."

"No there aren't," he yelled. "There isn't going to be anything between us. I want you out of my house. I want a divorce."

"What?" she gasped, stumbling back as if she had been slapped. "You can't just leave me."

"I'm not leaving you, I'm kicking you out!" he bellowed.

"Ron, be reasonable," she pushed, stepping around the pile of clothes to bring herself closer to him. "There is more going on here than you understand. Let's sit down and talk about this."

"Do not touch me," he hissed, pulling his hand free when she tried to hold onto his wrist. "I don't want you anywhere near me."

"Please, Ron," she gasped, the tears finally coming as she tried once more to grasp him. "I need you right now."

"I said don't touch me," he snapped, and he shoved her away from him.

The world seemed to slow down as she tripped over the clothing piled up behind her feet. She fell backward, and there was a sickening crack as her head hit the stone of the hearth. Pain exploded inside her head, but she rolled onto her side and pulled herself to her feet once more.

"Bloody hell," she screeched at him.

She cradled her head with one hand, and threw the clock off the mantle at him with her other. It missed him by a few feet, but she saw the rage erupt in his eyes at the thought that she had even tried. He lunged at her, and his fist connected with her jaw faster than she could draw her wand. He had hit her twice more, grunting like some sort of animal, before she was able to pull her wand free of her sleeve. She cast a stinging hex at him, causing him to stumble away from her roaring.

She couldn't think clearly, and the world seemed to be spinning around her. She was vaguely aware of the taste of blood in her mouth, but it hardly seemed to matter in the face of the fact that Ron was coming after her again. She struggled to find a happy memory, but she managed it, just in time to send her Patronus off to Harry before Ron drew his wand on her.

He brandished his wand at her, and she was absolutely horrified to feel the familiar blinding pain rip through her. She hadn't felt pain like this since she had writhed on the floor of Malfoy manor, but somehow it seemed even more painful to know that her husband was casting the curse. That was this thing about the unforgivable curses, you had to mean them, and if the pain was any indication, Ron really meant it.

"What the bloody hell are you doing?" she heard someone yell over her screaming, and then the pain suddenly stopped.

She could hear a scuffle, and thought she couldn't seem to open her eyes, she was fairly certain Ron and Harry were having some a physical altercation. She probably should have tried to stop them, but she couldn't find it in her to even move let alone pull herself up of the floor. Instead she gave in to the struggle and allowed consciousness to escape her.

* * *

Hermione woke up in a warm bed to the sensation of someone wiping a wet cloth along her jaw. She opened her eyes, and saw the very concerned face of Ginny Potter staring down at her. She blinked in the low light, trying to figure out how she had ended up in Grimmauld place, and that was when Ginny realized she was awake.

"How are you feeling?" she asked quietly. "I did my best to heal you, but if I missed something I could call Mum over to fix whatever I missed."

"I think… it's fine," she said in a hoarse voice, falling short when she realized she couldn't really say she was okay. "I think maybe I just need to sleep it off."

"Are you still hurting?" Ginny pushed one, clearly not taking her word for it that she was fine.

"I have a headache, and body aches," Hermione said quietly. "Nothing and aspirin and a warm bath won't fix."

"I still think maybe I should still call Mum, or maybe even take you to the hospital," Ginny said worriedly. "Harry said to let you make the call, but I just don't know what to do. You looked like death Hermione. Now that I've wash the blood away your skin looks so pale it's practically translucent."

"I just don't feel well is all," Hermione sighed sinking further into the pillows. "Just stay calm Ginny."

"I need someone else to be here, and Harry's at the ministry. I don't know what to do," Ginny continued to fret.

"Calm Ginny," Hermione reminded her tiredly. "If it will make you feel better you can call your mother, but please don't let her bring anyone else. I can't face the tribunal right now, I am too tired."

"No one's going to put you on trial," Ginny said as she stood from the bed. "Ron will be lucky to even get a trial with how livid Harry is."

"What?" Hermione asked.

"Harry had to pull Ron off of you, and it's lucky he didn't kill him when he did," Ginny said, worrying her hands. "Seeing you unconscious brought him to his senses enough to call me to help you and to hall Ron off to the ministry. He's still there, likely trying to have Ron thrown into Azkaban before the night is out."

"I'm sorry," Hermione said quietly, pulling her blankets up to her chin when she felt the sudden urge to hide.

"Don't you dare Hermione," Ginny said firmly. "My brother was torturing you. That isn't something you should be apologizing for. If I could get my hand on him right now, he'd be begging for Azkaban."

Hermione didn't know what to say to that, so she just gripped the blankets more tightly and nodded her head awkwardly.

"I'm going to go get Mum, if you can stay awake until she gets here that would be great, " Ginny said as she approached the door to leave. "If not, I think it's safe for you to sleep, as far as I can tell you don't have a concussion."

Hermione tried to wait for Molly, she really did, but Ginny hadn't been gone long before the lethargy began to pull at her. She battled her drooping lids, but it didn't take long for sleep to claim her once more.

* * *

"We can move the rest of your stuff in here permanently," Harry said firmly, holding his wife tightly to him as the both stood at the foot of Hermione's bed. "You don't ever have to go back to that apartment again."

"That's very nice," Hermione said tiredly, pointedly trying to ignore how Molly was fussing with her blankets. "I'd like to stay here for a little while if that's alright, but I think what I really need is to move away. I just need a day or two to get back on my feet."

"You can have as long as you like," Ginny answered swiftly. "And you don't have to move away. We can take care of you."

"You should take care of Ron," Hermione said tiredly. "He's likely to be fired when the paperwork about his arrest gets to his boss's desk, and his wife is leaving him. He's going to need support. You are his family, you should give it to him."

"We are your family too," Molly said, and Hermione was shocked to realize she was crying. "Let us take care of you."

"There's nothing you can do for me," Hermione sighed, but at the sight of Molly already crying she lost her nerve and decided not to be honest. "I just need time, a-and distance. I just want to go away."

"This really isn't the best time for me to change the subject," Harry interjected in a nervous voice. "But if you're looking for somewhere to go, it's probably a good time for me to mention that I did something that's going to make you angry."

Hermione's gaze flickered to him and she tried to predict what he was going to say while simultaneously waiting for him to just say it.

"Ginny brought your painting into the house, and I wouldn't let her hang it on the wall," he continued. "I wouldn't let her hang it on the wall because of how good it is. Talent like that shouldn't be wasted working as an Obliviator. So I sent that painting off to the artist's colony near Abbeville France, and petitioned for your entrance into the community."

"I should be so angry with you," she sighed, hoisting her tired body up into a sitting position so she could see him better. "You should never have been so presumptuous, but I can't be angry at you. I want to leave, and you've provided me with an avenue should they choose me."

"They want an interview first," Ginny said anxiously. "The letter came yesterday, and we didn't know what to say, since we never should have applied for you to begin with."

"When?" Hermione asked.

"The letter said that you should call them during business hours at the first available opportunity and they would arrange it then," Harry answered.

"Okay then," Hermione nodded. "Tomorrow."

"You don't have to run away Hermione," Molly choked out. "It doesn't have to be like this."

"I can't stay here Molly," she sighed. "All of this has been falling apart for a long time, and this thing that happened between Ron and I was the last straw. My life is over… here. It just is, and I think it has been for a while and I just haven't been able to admit it."

Molly nodded her head, trying to stop the tears that were falling freely now. Hermione knew that she was hurting her by seeming so callous, but she knew it would hurt her more to know that Hermione was dying so she kept her mouth shut. Instead she squeezed Molly's hand gently before rolling over and burrowing into the blankets and hiding.

* * *

"The counsel has seen the work samples you provided," the head of the program who was apparently named Mike said. "We've read your application, and now I just have one simple question for you that I just want you to answer honestly."

"I can do that," Hermione said politely.

"Why do you want to join the commune?" he said plainly, and the other men and woman around the table nodded their agreement to the question.

"For years now painting has been my only escape in my life," Hermione admitted. "And now when I a facing the worst moment in my life I find that the only logical place to turn is to art. I've just left my husband after he beat me within an inch of my life just hours after I found out that I have terminal cancer. I don't have much time left, and I'd like to spend it in a place where I am surrounded by the one thing that makes me happy. Your commune seems that best place to do that."

"Thank you Mrs. Weasley," he said quietly. "We will deliberate and then we will bring you back in with to inform you of our decision."

"Please call me Ms. Granger, and thank you sir," she said with a deferential nod of the head, and then she hurried out of the room.

* * *

Thirty minutes later Hermione was officially a member of the Abbeville artist commune, and she had been showed the room she would be staying in. She was bunking in a house with four other artists, that was among several other houses with similar occupants. She would have to return to Grimmauld place once more to retrieve her things, but then she would be ready to start her journey on the last leg of her life. She took a moment to just breath in the smells of paint and clay that lingered in the house, and convince herself that this was the right thing to do. She continued to tell herself that seeking treatment for a disease that was going to kill her was pointless. If she said it enough she'd start believing it wouldn't she?


	4. Chapter 4

**Peace comes from within. Do not seek it without. – Buddha**

* * *

Severus Snape had left the world of witchcraft and wizardy behind. He had traded in his frock coat for work clothes, and gave up potion brewing for working with his hands out in the French wheat fields. He still possessed his wand as well as his black, but they remained stowed away in his closet much like the demons of his soul remained safely locked in his past. He had grabbed on to the second chance he had been given in that God forsaken shack with both hands and he had run with it.

When he had been in the worst part of the war he had imagined that he would flee somewhere remote like the rainforests in Brazil of Antarctica. He thought he would go anywhere that put large distance between him and the country of England. So he surprised himself when he crossed the channel and settled down in a sleepy French town.

He had thought he was just passing through, but when he saw a sign advertising the need for a farm hand he applied. It seemed like the perfect place to settle. The job allowed him to work with his hands in a wheat field, and part of the compensation included a room in the bunk house with the other workers should he wish to take it. For a man who currently found himself homeless, it was the perfect job.

So he applied, and when he was accepted he moved into the bunk house with three other men who worked out in the fields. IT was a quaint little farm, that had been left behind as muggle technology advanced. They planted, grew, and harvested the wheat by hand. It was hard physical labor that gave Severus the chance to slowly work away his troubles until he found peace.

The only thing he found he couldn't make peace with was his bunk mates. When he had worked for the farm long enough to build up a financial pillow beneath him he moved out of the bunk house and into a tiny little house just over a mile from the Farm. It had one bedroom, a small kitchen, a sitting room, and a bathroom. It was smaller than his quarters had been at Hogwarts, but it was his and he found it more than adequate. It afforded him a nice morning walk each day to ponder the world before working in the fields, and it allowed him another walk at the end of the day to wind down and prepare himself to fall asleep.

That was another part of his new life. Sleep. He no longer spent half his nights pacing about his study worrying. Instead he worked until he was bone tired and then after a shower he climbed into bed at a decent hour and he slept through the night. It had taken years, but now the nights that he slept through without being woken by nightmares were much further apart than they once had been.

He was content, if a little lonely. His life was simple. All complications created by magic had been wiped away, and his largest worry was if he should mention to one of his coworkers that cannabis was illegal and if he wished to avoid jail time he might want to do something about the smell that lingered on him. It was a much better life than the one he had been originally handed.


	5. Chapter 5

"**Life's under no obligation to give us what we expect."**

― **Margaret Mitchell**

* * *

Slowly the numbness seeped away, and Hermione began to actually experience the world she had settled into. With the ebbing of the numbness she discovered several things. The first was that her new housemates had names, and personalities to go with them. There was Micah who was French, and had shaggy brown hair that matched his cheerful smile well, and he lived on the bottom floor. He lived there by himself now, as the fourth artist a young Chinese woman had returned home and her room was vacant. Hermione shared the second floor with Sierra and Brandon. Sierra was an American with blonde hair and a boisterous personality, and Brandon was from Britain as well, though his family was originally from south Africa. Brandon was her favorite, both because he was soft spoken and easy going, and because within the first day he realized that she liked to keep her secrets and wouldn't allow anyone to push her if she chose not to answer a question.

After she allowed herself to take in her housemates, she began to take notice of herself as well. What she notice upset her more than she wanted to admit. She notice that in addition to fatigue and extraneous urination she was bleeding much more frequently than she should be. When she allowed her mind to acknowledge her body, she realized that there was a constant pressure in her abdomen and pelvis, that was frequently coupled abdominal pain as well as back pain. All of that she could keep to herself, but the cancer was causing her middle to expand, and she couldn't help but notice the way people's eyes tended to linger. She sadly noted that she did actually look like she might be pregnant.

She cringed at the thought that Ron would be happy if she were actually pregnant. She tried to never think of Ron, but she always cringed when she did. It was an automatic pain response to the picture of his face in her mind. She tried to forget what it felt like to have his fist collide with her face, and in the face of the pain she experienced at the point of his wand she almost could. She could not as easily forget that he had used crucio on her when faced with the faint scarring in the center of her chest. She knew first hand that those eventually faded away, but it had taken years the last time.

Awakening was painful, but she found she was in the perfect place to deal with it. Artists were expected to be emotionally open, so rawness wasn't odd enough to draw extra attention. And instead of struggling not to be overwhelmed by her feelings while slugging her way through a difficult job, she simply poured all of it out of her onto the canvas. In her first week she tore through enough paint to have realistically covered the walls of her bedroom. Her canvases were dark, and vivid, and painful, but they took pieces of her pain and separated it from he body.

* * *

"Hermione, the group of us were going to wander into town for a bite to eat," Micah said with a soft smile. "Do you want to join us?"

"I'm not really hungry," Hermione said quietly, sparing a short glance up from her sketchbook and a brief smile. "Why don't you guys go ahead without me?"

"You don't seem to ever actually be hungry," Micah pointed out quietly. "But I have it under good authority that humans need to eat food. So I'd like it if you came with us."

"Micah," Hermione sighed, setting her still blank sketchbook aside and meeting his gaze. "I promise I'll go tomorrow. Tonight I am too tired, and not at all hungry."

"I'd like to just let you stay, but Brandon said I had better not come downstairs without you," he said with a crooked grin. "I don't know if you've noticed, but Brandon is nearly twice my size. He could choose to eat me for dinner instead if I don't bring you with me."

"Alright alright," she said with a soft chuckle. "If it will save your life, I'll come to dinner."

Hermione let Micah lead her down the stairs, and she tried to keep a smile on her face even though the prospect of walking a mile to get into town and to the restaurant they typically ate at made her so tired she wanted to cry. Brandon offered her a beaming smile when he saw her on the stairs, and that made her feel a little better. Going to this silly dinner would make her new friends happy, so she would do it.

They hurried out of the house, and from the moment she descended the stairs Hermione was struggling to keep up with then. She stopped trying to participate in the conversation, so she wouldn't give away the fact that she was completely breathless. By the halfway mark to town she couldn't keep up appearances anymore, she had to slow down. It took a moment, but Brandon noticed that she was lagging behind, and he slowed his pace until he was walking beside her.

"You are really tired aren't you?" he asked quietly.

Hermione used more of her energy to nod her head, and to her surprise Brandon stopped, and he grabbed her wrist to stop her as well.

"Climb up," he said, crouching down in front of her, and clearly trying to get her to climb on his back.

"Brandon, I can't," she said with a shake of the head. "Really don't be silly."

"Just climb on my back Hermione," he pushed on, tapping the back of her calf in encouragement. "I can carry you there, and if you feel that guilty about it you can finally tell me what's going on over dinner."

"I don't know if I'm ready," she sighed.

"If you aren't then you aren't," he said lightly. "I won't make you tell me, but I will make you climb on my back. So are you going to make me pick you up?"

"Okay, okay," she sighed tiredly, giving in, and climbing onto his back.

He reached behind him to cup her legs just above the knee, and then he stood. She felt very tall, and she was aware of how easy it would be for her to slip off of his back with her legs too tired to hold her up. So she was grateful that he kept his hands under her legs, holding her up. She was so grateful, that she didn't even wait until they got into town to start spilling everything to him. Instead she tucked her chin into the space between his shoulder and his neck, and she began to spill her secrets into his ear.

"I am tired all the time, and not hungry, and so many things," she whispered. "Because I am dying. Cancer is slowly eating my body away, and it makes me very tired. Sometimes, so tired that I'd rather just lay in bed hungry than exert the effort to carry my body to wherever food might be."

"Then I'll carry you to food," he promised in a tense voice that betrayed how much her dying upset him, making her glad she had never told anyone closer to me. "Or carry the food to you."

"That's a nice offer Brandon," she chuckled. "How about I promise to make more effort to go to meals instead?"

"We'll see," he said as they entered the outdoor seating area of one of the favorite spots for the artists. "Why aren't you with your family at a time like this?"

"My parents are gone," Hermione lied, opting not to explain that she had wiped their memories and been unable to bring them back, before continuing. "My friends and all related to my ex-husband, so I am my own family. All my family is here now."

"I'll bring you food, and I'll be your family," Brandon vowed. "All of us can. I know Micah and Sierra would want to help as well. Will you tell them what you've told me?"

"I'd rather not say it again," she sighed. "But you could tell them if you like."

"I will," he said as he lowered her onto her feet gently, and arm out to catch her if she swayed. "They won't want to miss any time."

* * *

Hermione spun her ring around between her fingers, staring out from where she sat on the front porch. She'd been wanting to get rid of the ring for a long time, but there was something about a wedding ring from a failed marriage that tied it to a person. She couldn't just throw it out. She couldn't send it back to Ron, she wasn't that callous. She couldn't just put it in a box, she'd tired that and the box just seemed to call out to her continually. It pulled more of her focus than if she wore it on a chain around her neck. So instead she sat on the front porch as the sun slowly set, turning the ring around in her hand, trying to find the right answer.

"I know what to do with it," Sierra said, startling Hermione from her musings.

She was leaned against the front door casually with a smoothie in one hand and what looked to be a lump of clay in the other. Hermione gave her a small smile and patted the seat beside her on the porch swing. Sierra joined her almost instantly.

"What should I do with it?" Hermione asked her quietly, accepting the smoothie when Sierra shoved it into her hand. "Thank you."

"Turn it into a piece of art," she said as if it were the simplest thing she had ever said. "I suggest clay, because the ring sort of demands a three dimensional piece, but your paintings are pretty dynamic you might be able to create something that I can't envision myself."

"Clay sounds perfect," Hermione said, her mind already whirring with an idea. "Using my hands in such a way to rid myself of this burden seems right."

"Take this then," Sierra said, slapping the small lump of clay into her hand before standing up. "There's more in the cellar if you need it."

Sierra went away, and Hermione sipped slowly at her smoothie while she began envisioning her sculpture. In her mind's eye she could see the brown clay form of a woman prostrate on the ground, shackled in her position by an actual chain. She would use the necklace that had held the ring to shackle to woman to her ring, which she would set in the ground of her piece. It felt like the perfect analogy for her marriage, and she hoped she could release some of that pain from her soul as she made it.

* * *

It was almost a month later when Micah sought out Hermione for a conversation about her illness. She saw the serious look on his face from quite a distance, and she girded herself preparing for hard questions. He seemed sad and stressed when he sat down with her in the grass, but she managed to look calm as she set her sketch pad aside and met his gaze.

"I wanted to ask you something," he said as an introduction, and she offered him a smile of encouragement. "I've been thinking about how you'll be going away, and I wanted a way to stop it but I've come to terms with the fact that there isn't. Instead I'd like a small way to keep you after you've gone. Would you let me paint you?"

Hermione didn't know what to say. On the one hand she was honored that Micah wanted to paint her, his human form paintings were the best on the commune. On the other hand she was so sad to see how affect he was by the idea of her dying that there were tears springing up in her eyes.

"Okay Micah," she said finally. "When do you want to do it?"

"Right now actually, if that's alright," he said with a small smile. "Your dress that you're wearing right now is very nice, you look almost happy today, and this grass field that you chose to sit in is dotted with yellow flowers that will look beautiful beside your hair when I use the color to border the painting."

"Okay Micah," Hermione said, and despite the fact that tears were falling from her eyes she laughed with him.

Micah pulled a canvas out of his satchel, and he propped it up against her knee while he dug out his oil paints and his little pallet that was caked with dry paint from the last time he had painted. Hermione found it endearing that he did that, but if she ever caught him leaving dried paint on her own pallet she would slap him. He glanced at her face occasionally as he mixed paints, and she saw that he was creating a pallet of colors for her skin.

"I'm going to start with your face, so you don't have to sit up straight or anything," he said distractedly, his French accent growing thicker in his distraction. "But if you could smile, for a little while, that would be nice."

Hermione could tell that he felt bad for asking, for pointing out that she didn't smile much, so she struggled through it and put a smile on her face. She wasn't sure if it met her eyes, so she hoped he could fix that with his paintbrush. She kept her face angled directly at him, but her eyes were locked on his hands as he began to bring her face to life on the canvas.


	6. Chapter 6

**Surprises are foolish things. The pleasure is not enhanced, and the inconvenience is often considerable.**

**-Jane Austen**

* * *

Severus Snape lived a solitary life. He rarely ventured into town both because he did not require much social interaction to get by, and because he lived on the outskirts of a town that housed a community of artists. He found many of them to be odd, and they were always present when he entered the town, so he didn't enter the town if he didn't have to. Today he had to enter the town however. His kitchen was nearly empty, he needed groceries and he wanted to stop by the local book store and find something different to read.

It was on his walk to the bookstore, with his canvas bag of groceries tucked under his arm, that he saw it. It was a display case, that he rarely ever paid attention too, where new art that was apparently considered quite good was put on display. Whoever ran the commune posted a new piece from time to time, but Severus never paid it much attention. Until today, when the face of Hermione Granger was looking out at him from within the display case. He stopped dead in his tracks, openly staring at the painting as he tried to calm hi racing heart. Had his past come to find him?

"It's wonderful isn't it?" a young woman said beside him, and he turned to glare at her.

She was unfazed by his rudeness and just offered him a sad smile.

"They put it in this morning, the girl is another of the artists," she continued as if he had invited conversation. "She asked them to put it down, but they wouldn't. I'm glad they didn't. I heard from some of the other artists that she is going to die soon, and seems only fitting that we have this picture here, to leave something beautiful behind when she's gone."

"Do you know her name?" he asked quietly, his mind trying to wrap around what she had said to him.

"Hermione I think," she said quietly. "I never did catch a last name."

He nodded his head and turned his gaze back to the painting. Was it possible that her showing up in Abbeville had nothing to do with him? And what was this woman talking about? Hermione Granger wasn't dying… was she? He was surprised by his curiosity, but still he turned his attention back to the woman who lingered beside him.

"Do you know what is killing her?" he asked, only realizing it as he said it that it was a very morbid question.

"Cancer I think," she said sadly.

A woman laden down with shopping bags flagged his companion down, and so she gave him a short nod and then disappeared from his side. He looked once more at the picture, and wondered about the girl who had given him a second lease on life. Was it cancer? Witches rarely got cancer, but as a muggle born she could be more susceptible. But why was she in France? If she was dying shouldn't she be at home with her parents, or somewhere with her friends? Why did he even care?


	7. Chapter 7

**If you limit your choices only to what seems possible or reasonable, you disconnect yourself from what you truly want, and all that is left is a compromise.**

**- Robert Fritz**

* * *

Hermione had refrained from straying too far from the center of the artist commune thus far in her stay. She had spent time in the community garden helping to grow the food that she and her house mates ate, and she had spent time amongst the others helping with basic cleaning. Those tasks made her tired, but it was important to her to be an active member of the community in spite of her illness.

She would venture as far as the grass field roughly a block from the house she lived in while painting or sketching, but today she was feeling spritely so she decided to go a bit further. She carried her canvas, easel, and paints in a burlap bag over her shoulder and she walked. She walked past the grass field she normally sat in, and continued along the winding country lane that led away from Abbeville until she came upon a wheat field.

Wheat fields were not particularly special in this area, it was a farming area, but this field drew her attention. There was a lone man, working his way through still green grains methodically plucking taller stalks. She could not recall the name of the plant he was removing, but she knew it was a weed that polluted the wheat when harvested. There was something striking about the man with long black hair working tirelessly while the sun shined down on him.

She dropped her bag to the ground and began to quickly assemble her easel while the man slowly worked his way closer to her. She hurried to get her canvas in place, and began to mix colors on her canvas. The sky was beautiful, and so was the wheat, but they would be there later and she was more concerned with capturing the image of the man before he had moved on. So she mixed a pallet to capture his pale skin, dark hair, and neutral clothing.

She worked as quickly as she could, trying to capture the way his back arched when he was ripping the plants from the earth. She put care into bringing to life the way his arms seemed to almost ripple with strength as he molded the earth into what he wanted it to look like. She was pleased with how it was coming along, and he was moving closer just when she was reaching his face. She looked up, eager to capture the way the sun hit the planes of his face, but her heart seemed to stop beating in her chest.

"Oh," she whimpered, the air rushing out of her chest as she realized she recognized the man's face.

She recognized it, but it was the face of a dead man and to her that meant only one thing. In her books about cancer, there had been a reference to what might happen if the cancer spread to her brain. It would cause hallucinations, and clearly she was hallucinating. Even if Severus Snape had managed to survive what had happened in the shack, he wouldn't be in France working in a wheat field, wearing colors other than black.

So with tears in her eyes she methodically put away her paints, and folded up her easel up so it might fit in her bag once more. She put her bag over her shoulder, and gingerly carried the still wet canvas with her as she walked away from the wheat field. She wasn't sure if she was crying at the memory of the man, or if she was crying about her own demise. All she knew was that suddenly this wonderfully sunny day seemed to be ruined and she just wanted to go home and slide into bed.

* * *

It was two days later when she pulled herself out of the funk she had settle into, and drug herself back out of bed. She took the shower that Micah had been begging her to take, and ate the meal Brandon was about to force feed her. After she felt semi human again, she had seated herself upon the front porch swing and against her better judgment she had pulled the now dry canvas into her lap. She stared at it for a long time, noting that the image didn't live up to the man it was meant to be at all, and that the vague lines that mapped out where the field and sky should be were sort of poetic but needed to be flushed out.

She still wasn't quite ready to admit that cancer was devouring her brain now, and she certainly didn't want to admit to herself that the end was near, but what she could admit was that this painting was unfinished. Her chest constricted and her heart rate accelerated, but she still knew that the right choice was to finish this painting. For all she knew it could very well be the last painting she ever made, it wouldn't do for it to remain unfinished.

So she methodically put together her easel and slid the canvas into its home. She was too tired to stand, so she pulled the easel right in front of the swing and ignored it while she began mixing paints on her palette. The world melted away from her as she began the difficult task of completing the painting that meant the end to her. She kept painting when the tears fell, and when Micah left with his own canvas tucked under his arms. She refrained from setting the paintbrush down when Sierra watched her for an hour while absent mindedly rolling clay between her hands. She was still painting when Sierra went back inside, and when Brandon returned home from working in the garden with a satchel full of fresh vegetables to make a salad for dinner.

She did not set her paintbrush down until the piece was finished. The sun was beginning to set around her when she set the paintbrush and palette down on the swing beside her and began wiping her hands clean on the old scarf she kept in her bag for such purposes. She breathed a long sigh of relief and tore her eyes away from the admittedly striking painting before her.

She tore her eyes away only to have them sting with tears once more before rolling back into her head in grief when she saw the manifestation of her brain tumor walking up the sidewalk toward the porch. Her whole body shook as she began to cry in earnest, but when she opened her eyes the image had not faded away. Instead the man she hallucinated stopped moving and stared at her with a stricken face and that only seemed to make her chest hurt more.

"Please, please go away," she whispered as the tears rolled down her cheeks. "It isn't fair. I-I am doing my best to be okay with dying, but it isn't fair to torture me this way."

She saw the face of the mirage morph with pain, but she was already turning her eyes toward the heavens. She wasn't sure she believed in God, so perhaps she was only really speaking to the roof of over the porch, but she kept talking anyway.

"Please make the hallucinations stop, I can't take it." She sobbed, vaguely aware that she heard someone approaching from inside the house. "Don't torture me with the image of the man I fail. Don't make the little bit of time I have left so painful."

She heard the creak of the door opening, but her eyes were already screwed shut against the tears once more, so she did not see who it was that joined her. She didn't even care who was there to see her breaking. There didn't seem to be much point anymore.

"I swear to God if the hallucinations do not stop, I will end it myself," she groaned tossing her head back, and hardly feeling it when her skull collided with the wall of the house.

"Hermione what are you talking about?" Sierra asked quietly as she cradled he head in her hands, and pulled her forward on the swing so she could not hit her head again.

"She believes I am a hallucination," a deep silky voice said from far closer than she remembered seeing him. "And she is begging for me to disappear because of this. Perhaps you could assure her that you see me as well."

Hermione's eyes snapped open, and through blurred vision she noticed that Sierra was not looking at her. Instead she was looking at something on the steps, so Hermione turned to look at what she was seeing and saw that Severus Snape was now standing on the steps looking at her with concern etched into his features. Her eyes snapped back to Sierra to confirm that she was also looking at the man with black hair as well.

"You see a man on the stairs as well?" she croaked, using a clean edge of the scarf to dab at her eyes.

"Hear him as well," she chirped in her happy American accent. "Why don't I grab you two smoothies while you talk?"

A part of Hermione wanted to grab her hand and keep her from leaving her alone with a ghost from her past, but the rest of her wanted her to go away so they could have a bit of privacy. The rest of her won out when she allowed Sierra to walk away with just a nod and then turned her attention back to the man who had relaxed just a bit now that she was attempting to believe he was actually present. He opened his mouth as if he were about to speak, but she cut him off.

"You are dead," she said quietly, folding her hands in her lap. "You don't look like a ghost, but I can't think of a better explanation for why Sierra can see you as well. Maybe she had a brain tumor."

"Have you been diagnosed with a brain tumor?" he asked pointedly. "Or are you assuming you have one because you think you're looking at a dead man?"

Hermione just stared. At least her hallucination had his snarky voice, that almost made it worth it for the sake of nostalgia.

"The latter then," he nodded, before sweeping forward, though it was less effective without wizarding robes in pace, and took a seat beside her on the porch swing. "You aren't hallucinating, and I am not dead. Which one would think you would know as you were the one to provide the potions that saved my life and my body was obviously never recovered."

"No one could find any trace of you," she stuttered. "The potion vials weren't there, if you had even left an empty vial behind I might have assumed you had survived somehow. But they weren't there, and even though you weren't there, no one could find you. The ministry assumed you dead."

"I wanted them too," he said with a subtle shrug. "I wanted a new life, and to avoid the very real possibility of being arrested for what I had to do in order to keep my cover."

"I don't understand," Hermione admitted, suddenly feeling very tired, and slumping back in the swing once more wincing when her head bumped against the house once more.

"I know you did not just hit your head on the wall again," Sierra snapped as she stepped out onto the porch with a smoothie in each hand. "He's not a hallucination woman. See how I have two smoothies instead of one?"

"Sorry," Hermione said quietly as she took the proffered smoothie and offered her a brief smile.

"I apologize about the after taste," Sierra said to Severus as she handed him the other smoothie. "I've been adding whey and soy protein to keep her energy up, and I didn't think about it until I had already added it to yours. The strawberry flavor should mask it a little though."

"Not to worry," he said in a surprisingly personably voice. "Thank you for the refreshments, I will make sure Miss Granger does not hit her head on the wall again."

Sierra was bright enough to understand that she was being dismissed, so she disappeared inside the house once more. Hermione sipped at her smoothie, praying it would give her a bit more energy, while she turned her attention back to Severus once more. It was completely surreal to see him seated beside her wearing brown pants and a white shirt holding one of her roommates smoothies and looking like he was on the verge of smiling.

"So if you're really here," she said quietly. "Why are you here? Why are you even in France?"

"The short version of how I ended up in France is this," he said, holding her gaze as if this conversation was completely normal. "I fled England with the intention of going abroad, and when I happened through this town I saw that they were hiring for a farm hand. I took the job."

"And here, at my house?" Hermione pushed.

"I stumbled upon a striking painting downtown," he said with a grimace after having sipped from his smoothie. "While I looked at this painting, a woman told me a sad story about the dying girl depicted. So I came to see if there was anything I could do to prevent your death."

"There isn't anything you can do," she sighed, clutching the cold glass in her hands and fighting a new round of tears.

"Do you know how a lift debt works Hermione?" he asked quietly, and her eyes snapped over to his.

She shook her head.

"It creates a feeling within the person who holds the debt," he explained, immediately sounding like the professor her used to be. "That feeling allows them to sense when there is an opportunity to fulfill the debt. I imagine if I had been in your presence before now I would have felt it long ago. But I do feel it now Hermione, and that can mean only one thing. Your death is not certain."

"I have stage three ovarian cancer," she spat at him, fighting the urge to throw the half empty glass in her hand upon the ground. "Even if I was to allow them to cut out my ovaries, and my uterus, and my cervix, and the parts of my intestines that have mets growing on them, I would probably still die. I would just be full of holes as well as dead."

"I may not be a doctor, but I understand the science behind cancer treatment Hermione," Severus said quietly, reaching out to gently touch her hand, causing her to freeze in place. "Yes they would cut you open, and remove anything that had cancer growing in it, and yes you would have to undergo chemotherapy but it is not a certainty that you would die. The odds are high yes, but that does not mean that you cannot fight for your life."

"What life?' she whispered, pulling her hand free of his grasp and absently rubbing at the scars on her chest as she looked away from him. "I have made my life as small as I can, so that there will be less of a void when I disappear. What exactly would I be fighting for more time to paint? I can paint now."

"You have friends here, living in this house with you," he pointed out quietly. "And you have your friends back in England, though I am at a loss as to why they would let you go off to die like this."

"They do not know that I am sick," she sighed. "But even if they did they would have let me go, they would have given me anything considering…"

She did not finish her sentence, choosing to finish her smoothie rather than spill the worst of her life with this man who had appeared out of nowhere to try and force her into doing something that she didn't want to do. She stared into her empty cup rather than meet his gaze, but from the corner of her eye she saw him patiently sip from his own glass and wait for her to speak. The porch grew tense around them, and she felt compelled against her will to continue speaking to him.

"I wanted to go away somewhere the moment I got the diagnosis," she whispered, never breaking the staring contest with her empty cup. "But instead I went home to my then husband, but I never even got the chance to tell him what was wrong because he was so angry with me for not giving him a child. Something broke in him over that, and so her tried to break me. When my friends had finished cleaning the blood from my skin, and healing my wounds, they would have given me anything if it meant I would just smile. So even if I had told them I was dying, they would have let me go."

"So if I am understanding the timeline correctly," Severus said quietly, in a slightly darker voice than he had been using before. "You received a life threatening diagnosis, were tortured by whatever sorry excuse for a man you were married to, and then quickly moved away to another country where no one knew you and settled in to die without a second thought?"

"I didn't say anything about torture," she sighed, turning her head to meet his gaze, and faltering when she saw that his eyes were burning with anger. "But yes the timeline sounds about right."

"You didn't have to tell me about the torture," he growled the anger boiling over rapidly. "I am very familiar with the scars left behind by the cruciatus curse."

"It doesn't matter anymore," she sighed setting her cup down on the lip of her easel and turning to fully face him. "Ron is in Azkaban so he can't do it again, and I won't be around much longer for it to be a risk anyway."

"You don't seem to understand that you got swept up in a series of catastrophic events," he said, his hand jerking as if he were going to touch her again but stopping himself. "And because of that, you've given up. You've assumed the fight is over, but in reality it hasn't even started yet."

"I'm too tired to fight," she admitted, slumping forward to rest her hand in her chin. "Far too tired to engage in a losing battle."

"I will be there every step of the way," he said quietly but firmly. "So if you are tired, be tired, that is okay."

"Why bother," she asked, her eyes watering again as she searched his.

"Because a life debt is a serious debt," he said dismissively. "It would cause me physical pain if I were to actively allow you to die. I imagine it would also cause a lot of people emotional pain if you were to die."

"If we do this," she said hesitantly. "I don't want to leave here. It's beautiful here, and if I am going to die, I want to do it somewhere as beautiful as this."

"That is a term I can accept," he nodded before he stood up. "I will arrange an appointment for the morning."

"Oh… um… okay," she stammered as he began walking away.

"By the by, that painting looks nothing like me," he called over his shoulder with a deep rolling chuckle that shook her to the core.

* * *

Hermione was sitting on the front porch with Brandon the next morning waiting for Severus. He had called late the night before to tell her when their appointment was, and it had been just as strange to hear his voice through the phone, as it was to be sitting on the front porch waiting for him to pick her up.

"I feel like you and I have become pretty good friends," Brandon said quietly. "And because of that, I am going to tell you this. I am so angry with you Hermione."

"I'm sorry?" she said, stopping the gentle rocking motion she had been causing as she gave him her complete attention.

"You presented this as a sure thing, that there was no chance of you getting better," he said pointedly. "If I had known that there was a chance, I would have been dragging you to the hospital ages ago."

"There isn't a chance of getting better, at least I don't believe there is," she explained patiently, holding his hand in hers. "I am going to this appointment because an old friend of mine is demanding it of me. It doesn't mean I am magically not sick anymore, just that I don't know how to say no to him."

"But maybe there is a chance!" he said, squeezing her hand in his. "This could be the big chance you know? Maybe you could live."

"Please don't get your hopes up to high," she sighed as an old farm truck rumbled up in front of the house. "I don't want you to get hurt if the news is bad. Can you promise that you won't get your hopes up?"

"I will try," he said, releasing her hand as she pulled herself to her feet with a quiet groan. "Good luck today."

She smiled at him over her shoulder as she began walking toward the truck. Severus had already hopped out of the truck and was hurrying around to open the door for her. It was strange enough to see him driving vehicle, but seeing him be so polite to her was very strange. When she struggled to climb into the truck that was high off of the ground he helped by lifting her slightly so she could slide into the seat. She heard the gentle sigh when he acknowledged how little she weighed now but he didn't say anything so she didn't either. She noticed that he had worn his frock coat today, and she wondered if it was to give her a sense of normalcy, but she still didn't say anything.


	8. Chapter 8

**The only courage that matters is the kind that gets you from one moment to the next. ~Mignon McLaughlin**

* * *

Hermione thought she was prepared for the appointment she had agreed to go to, but she had not been prepared at all. The fact that Severus was dutifully staying at her side did very little to remove the nerves that ran through her when they loaded her into huge machine that surrounded her entire body and asked her to stay absolutely still while they scanned her body to find out just how bad her cancer was. She found suddenly that she wanted this formerly sullen man to hold her had when she was encapsulated in a machine that would not even allow such an action. She had thought that getting out of the tomb like machine and settling into a chair would make her feel better, but the doctor started talking.

"When did your physician first diagnose you?" Doctor Chen asked without expression.

"I suppose it's been about six months now," Hermione said, tilting her head to the side as she tried to prepare herself for the rant she thought was coming.

"I couldn't find the previous diagnosis in your medical file," the doctor continued. "I actually can't find any records since roughly the age of eleven. Is there another hospital I need to contact to retrieve those?"

"I've been seeing a healer," Hermione said, only telling half a lie. "I'm not entirely sure she kept records."

"Well, if I hadn't just done your scans I might question the diagnosis," she said with a tiny little sigh. "I might even chide you for not following up with such a serious diagnosis sooner, but the past is the past, and we need to be looking forward from this point on so I am not going to do that."

Hermione didn't know what to say to that, so she just looked over at Severus, surprised to find that he was glaring at her.

"Now to the looking forward part, your scan revealed more than I was expecting," she said, and the she produced a box of tissues from within her desk and the world seemed to shrink down to a very small point for Hermione. "Your cancer has advanced to stage four. There are mets on your intestines, your liver, one of your kidneys, your lungs, and your brain."

"That's a lot to take in," Hermione managed to ground out as she tightened her grip on the chair and tried to feel something through the haze that seemed to be filling her mind.

"It's big, and the odds aren't optimal," the doctor responded, her face shifting to one of determination. "No doctor wants to tell their patient that the odds of survival are five percent. So I'm not going to tell you that. What I am going to tell you is that I don't care about the odds. We'll have to be aggressive when we fight this. We'll have to hit it fast, and hit it hard but your diagnosis is not a death sentence."

"There is a 95% chance that it is," Hermione whispered her eyes burning and her shoulders quaking as she fought the wave of emotion building up within her.

"Forget the odds," Severus said quietly as he pressed tissues into her palm, and kept his warm hand resting lightly on her arm. "Think about the fight, that's what's important now."

"He's right, it's about looking forward now," Doctor Chen said, drawing Hermione's attention back to her. "The first step is removing what mets we can. Because there are so many we will need to stagger your surgeries. It would mean at least a week with us here in the hospital to complete them before we begin chemo or radiation. I can schedule the first for tonight if you are ready."

"How many surgeries will there be?" Hermione asked, pressing the tissue to her eyes and trying to focus her mind.

"Most likely three," she answered snapping into an academic voice quickly. "We will break them up by the systems of your body. Neuro, pulmonary, and general. I will need to speak with our neuro surgeon, but I am sure that he will want to operate first before any of the nasty side effects start showing up."

"Schedule it," Hermione nodded firmly reaching out to clasp the hand that was holding her arm and turning to face him. "I guess you can go home then, looks like I'm staying here tonight."

"I believe step one would be one of those steps I said I'd be here for," he said with a hint of the old sarcasm she was used to in his voice. "I'll be here when you come out of surgery."

* * *

He was there when the team came to prep her, and he didn't laugh when she cried about shaving her hair in order to cut open her scalp. He watched patiently from his position at the wall when the wheeled her away and it calmed her a bit to think he would be waiting there while they operated. And he was there sometime later when she woke in a groggy state in an unfamiliar room hooked up to far too many machines.

"They got all of the mets while they were up there," he whispered seeming to know without asking that she had a headache. "They assure me that your mental faculties should be in working order, but I'm not sure that was the case even before the surgery."

"Don't be mean," she pouted in a tired and raspy voice.

"Don't be stupid Hermione," he snapped back, still in a whisper. "You didn't even seen an oncologist before today did you? You took the word of an untrained healer, assumed there was no shot for you, and just gave up on life didn't you?"

Hermione couldn't really say anything to that. Her decision had made sense to her at the time, but when he phrased it like that it sounded horrible.

"And the symptoms you have to have been ignoring are serious," he continued in his whispered rant. "You can't just keep quite if you have continued shortness of breath, or pain, or weight gain from fluid retention in your abdomen. Symptoms are there for a reason Hermione."

"Okay," she sighed, letting her eyes flutter shut so she wouldn't have to see how upset he looked.

She remembered why she hadn't told any of the Weasleys or the Potters when she saw how upset he looked. She couldn't think about someone else depending on her to live right now, so was to scared of her own emotions over the whole situation to ponder the feelings of anyone else. She wanted to shout at him to back off, that she had agreed to fight this now, and she didn't need a guilt trip for what she had done in the past, but she simply didn't have the energy and it wasn't worth the headache that would follow it.

"Did they tell you when the next surgery would be?" she asked as a change of topic.

"I had to misrepresent my relationship with you to get them to release the information," he said awkwardly. "But they want to do the surgery on your lungs tomorrow."

"What do they think you are to me?' she asked with a quirked brow.

"As far as they are concerned I am your husband, but you chose to keep your last name," he shrugged. "It's not like anyone can repeat what I said outside the hospital. So no one has to know that I'm mascaraing as your husband."

"They were eventually going to ask why you were here so often," she sighed tiredly, trying to snuggle deeper into the blankets without snagging any of the cords that were attached to her. "Husband is as good a reason as any."

Without further ado she drifted off to sleep and left Severus watching her in surprise. He had no idea what to do with this woman. Maybe it was the drugs, but he couldn't understand how she hadn't even flinched while he berated her and then just blandly accepted that he had staked such a claim on her before going to sleep. Sure he wasn't trying to make that claim in their real life, but it was still intrusive and he had expected to be yelled at for it.

He thought he should be upset that the quiet peace of his life had been torn apart so quickly, but he found as he watched her sleep peacefully that he wasn't. He blamed the life debt, but he found as long as she was well enough to sleep peacefully he wasn't upset. The little life had built didn't seem very important at the moment, which was why had didn't feel guilty about using some of the vacation time he had built up over the years to take the week off and be here at the hospital with Hermione.

* * *

"Maybe we should learn sign language," she rasped at him the next evening shortly after the nurse had removed her breathing tube. "If they are going to be ramming a tube down my throat every time they take me in it might be wise."

"Don't talk yet," Severus chided her gently as he provided a glass of water. "Your throat needs to rest, and there's only one more surgery. We'll manage."

"What if I need to tell you about symptoms?" she mouthed at him cheekily before taking a sip of water and wincing as it went down her throat.

"I can always use legilimency," he pointed out with a brief grin of his own as he took his seat. "Doctor Chen said she would be back in a while if you have questions. I think I can explain how this surgery went as well though if you wish."

Hermione nodded, in an effort to appease his request that she not talk.

"She supervised the resection went well. And I must tell you how lucky you were to be asleep and miss the explanation of the word resection as if my vocabulary were so lacking I could not possible understand the term used for a partial removal of an organ," he said with only a slight sneer. "They didn't have to take as much lung as they thought they would, so they are very pleased. She said you should notice an improvement in the ease of breathing, but it won't clear entirely until they have dealt with the ascites."

She narrowed her eyes at him, expecting him to understand the question she was asking but preparing to ask it out loud if she had to.

"Ascites?" he asked, and she gave him a brief nod. "The built up fluid in your abdomen. They'll remove it tomorrow, and do the last surgery the day after."

"You know with your husband here I'm not sure you even need me to explain the procedures," Doctor Chen said from the doorway with a smile.

"I hadn't gotten to the port, you could explain that," Severus said though he didn't have any friendly smiles for the doctor.

"We did install a port while we were in for the surgery," she said as she crossed over to check the information the monitors were providing about Hermione. "It will save you a lot of unpleasant needle poking during chemotherapy. The nurses brought it to our attention that you have stubborn veins, and I thought it would make things a bit easier on you."

"No more digging for veins?" she asked as cheerfully as her hoarse voice would let her.

"No more digging," she said with a smile before digging something out of her pocket and offering it to Hermione. "And hopefully no more rasping."

Hermione beamed at the lozenge and quickly popped it in her mouth.

"How are you feeling?" Doctor Chen asked as she adjusted something on her IV.

"A little tired and sore, but not bad," Hermione said with a lazy shrug. "The headache has mostly disappeared, as I imagine the tightness in my chest will with time."

"Any pain at your incision sites?" she continued.

"Only if you touch them," Hermione winced when she pressed gently against the gauze on her chest.

"A nurse will be by in a few hours to change them again, but everything seems good for now," she said with a smile. "For now you should rest. As should you Mr. Snape. Would you like us to bring in a cot?"

"The chair is fine Doctor Chen," he said politely before turning his attention back to Hermione.

The doctor nodded and swept out of the room and left them sitting in relative silence once the door had been closed. Severus watched people moving about at the nursing station but Hermione watched him. She didn't think it would go well if she asked him why he was staying when all she was going to do was sleep, but she felt awfully guilty about him sitting in that chair for another night.

"You don't have to sleep in the chair again tonight," Hermione said quietly while picking at the lint on the blanket. "You can go home to sleep. I'm just going to be sleeping here anyway."

"I've already cast a cushioning charm on the chair," he shrugged. "Once you've fallen asleep I will leave for a shower and a bite to eat, but I'll be here to see you off before they take you into surgery again."

"I really appreciate you being here with me for this," she said very quietly. "I know you never liked me much, and-"

"I didn't like anyone while I was working at Hogwarts," he interrupted her. "And it was particularly important that I appear to dislike someone of your heritage considering my position at the time."

"Well all the same," she pushed on.

"Stop," he said firmly, but not harshly. "I am not burdened by being here, you do not need to flounder out an apology. If it will make you feel better I can leave now and come back in the morning."

"That's okay, you can stay if you want," she said with a dismissive shrug, but she couldn't help but smile just a little bit.

* * *

Hermione did not feel very talkative after her surgery the next day. It was the least invasive one yet, but she was drained. Her body felt like it wanted to give out on her and other than moving about a bit for tests the doctors wanted to do she tried to just lay in bed. Severus was present the entire day, but he seemed to understand she was too tired to talk son he sat at her bedside and read the newspaper. In between her cat naps he read aloud to her and she couldn't help but love the sound of his voice even is he was reading to her about international business.

* * *

Severus looked like a ghost when she woke up after her last surgery. He quickly schooled his features to an unreadable expression, but she could see that his skin was still a bit pale. She felt fairly awful but she tried to offer him a smile anyway. He did not reciprocate.

"Let's avoid trying to bleed out on the table during any future procedures shall we," he said tersely.

"Were there complications?" she asked in confusion, not understanding what exactly had happened.

"Yes," he said, slumping back into the chair as if that one little word had released all of the tension in his body. "It was a long surgery, and halfway through a doctor came out to tell me that everything was going fine. Sometime after that apparently they had the complications."

He paused, running his hand through his hair in a sign of agitation before he gathered himself once more.

"When the surgeon was removing your uterus the uterine artery burst and you almost bleed to death before they could get things under control," he explained. "They obviously gave you blood in there, but they've been by to give you more blood since then. I doubt any of the blood in your body right now is actually yours."

"Well maybe this blood doesn't have cancer," she said lightly hoping he would laugh, but he didn't. "I promise not to bleed to death Severus."

"I'd appreciate that," he sighed. "It sounds like they were successful other than that. They removed all of the mets that they saw, and they successfully removed both of your ovaries and uterus. In a bit the doctor is going to talking to you once again about the menopause symptoms that should cause, but you can ignore you. I've already brewed a potion to deal with that. You don't need that in addition to everything else."

"Severus why do you think magic doesn't have a cure for cancer?" she asked sadly.

"They don't see it much," he said plainly. "And apparently those that do just shuttle their patients off to muggle doctors without any thought of changing their own medicine in order to help."

"You sound like you've thought about it," she pointed out.

"I have," he nodded. "There was a student once, when I first started teaching. A muggle born like you, she developed leukemia during her third year, and she didn't make it to see her fourth. There wasn't anything we could do for her, and I felt worthless watching her wither away. "

"So you started researching cancer?" she asked, honestly interested no matter how tired she was.

"I did, and I have dabbled with potions trying to find something that could cure it," he sighed. "Nothing comes as close to being as effective as chemotherapy. So now I think I might focus on counteracting the negative effects of the treatment."

"I sort of assumed you gave up magic when you moved here," she admitted.

"I did, but potion making is still a part of me I guess," he shrugged. "Besides, I can help you, don't look a gift horse in the mouth."

"Okay, okay," said with a chuckle, before wincing. "Oh this incision is worse than the others."

"Should be, it's twice as big," he pointed out.

"So there is a potion for menopause?" she asked with a smirk. "I always wondered why I never heard of any witches dealing with hot flashes."

"No, it's a fairly basic potion," he said with a light laugh. "When a woman notices she's going through those changes they can just go into an apothecary and pick up the little potion and be done with it. Those potions are usually poor quality though, so I brewed you one instead. I'll brew what I can throughout this process to help, so long as it doesn't interfere with their treatments."

"I think you might be an angel," she sighed as a nurse bustled in and gave her another round of pain meds, but when the nurse smiled Hermione thought it was important she make certain he knew who she was talking about. "If you weren't already my husband I'd marry you."

"I think you gave her too much," he told the nurse with a light laugh.

The mixture of her laugh, and the sound of Severus opening the newspaper once again lulled Hermione off to sleep once again.

* * *

"We're discharging you from inpatient care," Doctor Chen said as she wheeled Hermione in a chair out to the waiting truck. "But you'll still be seeing a lot of me. I want you back Monday morning for your first round of chemo."

"Like tomorrow, or next Monday," Hermione asked as she tried to hoist herself up and out of the chair.

"Next Monday," she said as Severus hurried around to help Hermione navigate the small distance between the chair and the truck. "Take this week to rest up and heal. Your incisions are healing well, but no heavy lifting or strenuous activity."

Hermione nodded her agreement.

"Call me if anything changes," she continued through the truck window when Severus had shut her inside and was hurrying around to the other side. "If you feel ill, if any old symptoms recur, if you have increased pain. I mean it."

"I promise," Hermione assured her.

The doctor stepped away from the truck and Severus drove away. Hermione held onto her seat belt for something to do while Severus focused on the road. She saw that he was taking her back to the artist's house, and somehow found that she was surprised. They hadn't talked about it, but she had assumed he would demand he stay with her for observation. She offered him a soft smile when she saw that she was wrong.

She saw that Brandon, Sierra, and Micah all came out onto the porch when the truck rumbled up the drive. The three of them looked anxious waiting for her, and for the first time in days she felt self-conscious about her missing hair. She fussed with the pink scarf one of the nurses had put in place for her and hesitated in removing her seat belt.

"I'll come by later with the potion I already told you about as well as an energy enhancer to help you feel a bit better," he told her, though his eyes were trained on Brandon who was approaching the truck. "You'll probably feel strong enough to be up and about after you take it, but you still need to rest so your body can heal. But it should allow you enough clarity to paint if that would make you feel better."

"Thank you Severus," she said with a genuine smile. "You've taken very good care of me."

He nodded, and then turned his eyes away when Brandon reached the truck and pulled the door open. Brandon offered her his hand with a silent smile and she took it. He gingerly helped her to climb out of the truck, and she didn't argue with him when he kept his arm around her shoulder to help her walk into the house. She could hear the truck rumble away from the house but she didn't turn to wave at Severus, she knew he would be back shortly. It looked like the others wanted to fuss over her, but something in her face seemed to tell them not to. Instead Brandon lead her into the once empty downstairs bedroom, which she saw now housed all of her things.

"We thought it would be easier this way," he said as a simple explanation.

"This is great," she said honestly. "Thank you guys."

"Why don't you lay down," Brandon suggested, already turning down the blankets for you.

"I'll bring you a smoothie," Sierra chirped before disappearing.

Hermione couldn't help but laugh a little, that girl sure loved her smoothies. Her throat was still a little sore from the multiple intubations, so she couldn't think of something that actually sounded better than a smoothie. So she didn't fight it, she settled into the bed and let Brandon tuck her in while Micah looked on from the doorway. There people were starting to feel a lot like family, and that made her happy, but she suddenly felt the stinging loss of her parents once again and thought she might burst into tears.


	9. Chapter 9

"**Pain is temporary. Quitting lasts forever."**

― **Lance Armstrong**

* * *

Severus had been sleeping in his own bed for the first time in a week for roughly fifteen minutes when the phone his employer required he keep began ringing. He staggered out of bed wondering who was calling at one in the morning. He pulled the receiver to his ear and barked a less than polite hello to whoever was on the other side.

"Mr. Snape?" a male voice said on the other end.

"Yes, who is this," Severus grumbled back.

"This is Brandon Leckerby," he answered. "I found your number in Hermione's phone. I can't get her to stop crying and I thought maybe you could."

"Why is she crying?" he asked, sitting up straighter, abruptly alert.

"She's in a lot of pain," Brandon explained. "We tried having her take her meds, applying heat, applying ice, but nothing has helped. Sierra suggested acupuncture but Hermione hit her with a pillow and banished us all from her room."

"I will be over shortly," Severus said already reaching for a pair of pants. "Do not let Sierra near her with any needles."

Severus hung up before the other man had a chance to say anything else and began quickly throwing on his clothes. He found that Hermione seemed more comfortable around him in his classic black, which still amused him considering how uncomfortable his coworkers were with those same clothes. He took the time to put his frock coat on, but he left it unbuttoned over his white shirt in his haste to get to Hermione. He had brewed pain potion as soon as he had gotten home from delivering the other potions she would need, but he hadn't expected her to need it quite so soon.

The streets were deserted at such a late hour so he was able to barrel through the streets quickly without threat of an accident. The truck was old so it didn't go as fast as he would like it to, but it got him there fast enough. He still felt strange driving onto the artist's commune, but it felt a little less odd when there weren't distracted artists wandering around. The streets here were dead as well, with all of the lights out in the houses, until he rolled up in front of the white house Hermione lived in.

Here all of the lights seemed to be on, and two of the three other occupants were standing on the porch looking anxious. He parked the truck and made his way past them and into the house with a slight nod. He quickly schooled his features when he felt frustration boil up in him at the discovery of how messy the house was. There seemed to be dried clay and paint everywhere, and frankly it wasn't the best environment for a sick person to be living in, but he didn't feel it was his place to say anything. So instead he remained silent, only offering another stiff nod to Brandon at the closed door that obviously had Hermione behind it. He could hear her crying from the hallway.

He entered the room, closing the door quickly behind him and waiting for Hermione to gather herself a bit. He had to admit she didn't look great. Her face was swollen from the crying, but her color was pallid and she seemed to be a little sweaty. He was suddenly glad he had brought his wand as he swept forward and began casting diagnostic charms.

"Okay," he said very quietly to her as he crossed over and sat on the edge of the bed. "You do not have any infections; this is just a healing pain."

Hermione wailed in response to that but she reached out and latched onto his hand. He froze momentarily at the abrupt contact, but then he squeezed her hand back and ignored how tightly her hand was convulsing on his.

"I know it hurts, I know Hermione," he said quietly, using his other hand to fish out the vial of potion he had brought. "This right here is where the fight starts. You have to fight through this, but I brought something to help."

"I t-thought the fight started when we went to see the doctor," she choked out as he used the thumb on his left hand to pop open the vial without releasing the hand she was holding.

"It did," he agreed gently. "And it starts now, and it will start again when you begin chemo. For a while every day is going to be a fight, but you can do this. You are strong."

"I don't feel strong," she whispered as she tried to bring her tears under control.

"That's okay, I'll be the strong one for tonight," he said with the tiniest little chuckle.

He let go of her hand so he could support her head without making her sit up, and he tipped the potion into her mouth. Hermione swallowed it greedily, and h saw the lines of pain receding slowly from her face when he lay her head back down on the pillow. He drew his wand once more when he saw her eyes easing shut in relief.

"We have to be careful about how often you take that potion," he explained as he began casting cooling charms on her incision sites. "It's highly addictive, and it can damage your organs if you over use it."

"That feels good," Hermione whimpered as the chill settled over her healing wounds that had felt so hot. "Why didn't I think of that?"

"You were a little distracted," he provided an easy excuse. "Besides, I don't see your wand anywhere."

"I hide it in the dresser," she explained sleepily as he body seemed to sink into the bed. "My roommates are too observant, and I'm too tired for spells anyway."

"You just need some rest," he said lightly, as he conjured a towel and began wiping away the sheen of sweat on her forehead. "Just go to sleep Hermione."

She complied so quickly that he had hardly stopped speaking when she drifted into a deep sleep.

* * *

When being woken in the night by a phone call from Brandon became a regular thing, Severus could no longer refrain from pointing out that the artists' house may not be the best place for Hermione to live right now. Hermione had thought he was saying she needed to move into the hospital full time, so they had a bit of a flaming row before she finally understood that he was suggesting she move into his house. Then there had been a negotiation after that, but eventually she had agreed to it in order to make things easier on him.

With a little spell work the outside of his house looked exactly the same, but an undetectable extension charm allowed him to add another bedroom for her to sleep in. He moved his bed into that room, and transfigured a kitchen chair into a bed in his room. Any furniture he had ever transfigured tended to be a bit hard, and he knew her pain was only going to increase so he wanted her to have the softer bed. They decided to move her in after her first round of chemo therapy, so Severus had a feeling he would be the one doing all of the moving but he was not upset about it.

Brandon and Micah had loaded the surprisingly small amount of belongs Hermione owned quickly into the back of his truck while Severus helped Hermione out to the truck. She was moving much better than she had been when she was first released but she still seemed a little unsteady on her feet. So even though it meant he had to encroach on her space a bit he kept an arm wrapped around her back and he walked slowly. The last thing they needed was for her to fall and tear open one of the incision sights.

"What do you say we just drive on past the hospital," Hermione sighed as they began driving down the street. "We'll just keep on driving until we run out of road."

"If you want to die I could just use an unforgivable on you," Severus answered with a dark smirk.

To his immense relief she laughed at that.

"I'll remember that for when things get bad," she said through her laughter.

The laughter died on her lips when they drove into the parking lot outside of the hospital, but she managed to keep a somewhat pained smile on her face. She kept her brave face in place as he led her through the sliding doors, all through the elevator trip up to oncology, and the initial greeting from Dr. Chen. It feel from her face when it was explained that she would undergo radiation therapy today as well.

"The actual treatment is very short, but you will need to have it each week day," Dr. Chen explained to a crestfallen Hermione. "After six weeks we will reevaluate and see if you need to continue with radiation. We could stagger the treatments if you aren't up for it today, but that would put you in the position to come up to the hospital six days a week instead of five."

"Two days at home sounds better," Hermione relented before forcing that smile back onto her face. "So which is first chemo or radiation?"

"Chemo," Dr. Chen said with a brief smile before leading the pair of them into a small room with three reclining chairs.

Severus was irritated that she would be treated in a public space, but relieved that no one else seemed to be present for treatment today. He took a seat in one of the plain chairs near the wall and watched as Dr. Chen took a bright green ziplock baggy from a nurse who quickly entered and then exited the room. From within the bag came alcohol swabs, and what could have been a bottle of water but his sensitive nose picked up the scent of salt from where he sat.

"You'll need to drink the entire bottle before we get started," Dr. Chen explained as she began hanging bags from the pole beside Hermione's chair.

Hermione made quick work of drinking the concoction, and Severus was certain based on her face that it had salt in it. Dr. Chen kept herself busy with preparing the tubes that ran from the two bags. He watched the bags with interest, noting that one was opaque and likely had the chemotherapy drugs in it, and the other was clear and could be just about anything. Hermione didn't even wince as Dr. Chen inserted the IV into her port.

"If you need to go to the bathroom it is just through this door," Dr. Chen explained. "Be careful moving with the IV pole, but moving around is fine if you feel the need. Otherwise just try to get comfortable, and I will be back after a little while to check on you."

"So did you bring anything good to read?" Hermione asked as she settled further into her chair. "Or will you be reading the newspaper again today?"

"I brought one of my old potions books," he said pulling it from within his pocket, and wandlessly returning it to its proper size. "It's spelled to look like the Farmer's Almanac of course."

She gave him a smile, and he nodded before he turned his attention to his book. He listened with an attentive ear as she quietly hummed to herself, and wondered if perhaps she were bored. He was just contemplating handing her his book when she cleared her throat and he looked up just in time to see her shuffling her way out of the chair.

"Don't I can pee by myself," she chuckled when he started to get up. "Just read your book, and you can tell me all about it later."

Severus shook his head at her, and watched very carefully as she shuffled into the bathroom. She still seemed a little tired on her feet, but it didn't look like she was in danger of falling so he let her go on her own. He returned to reading the book like she had told him to and he waited for her to return. The room was quiet without even the sound of her breathing, until suddenly he heard a soft whimper from within the bathroom. He was on his feet immediately, but by the time he reached the door she had already thrown the door open.

"Do they have a button for calling the nurse in here," she asked, her eyes looking panicked. "Like in the other room, after the surgeries?"

"They do," he said, hurrying over to her chair to hit it immediately. "What's going on?"

"I'm bleeding!" she said tears immediately springing to her eyes. "What if this chemo is just going to kill me faster Severus?"

"Hold on," he said in the soft voice that he had normally reserved for upset students, and he hadn't brought out in more than five years, as he lead her over to her chair. "Where are you bleeding from?"

"I'd think that would be obvious, since I just came from the bathroom," she shot back, not calming down in the slightest.

"What can I do for you?" a friendly nurse they hadn't met yet said as she bustled into the room.

"I'm bleeding," Hermione repeated again, sounding twice as agitated.

"Did you just use the restroom," the nurse asked calmly, and Severus noted that she had the air of someone who had partaken in this conversation many times before.

"Yes," Hermione said, seconding her own answer with a nod of the head. "Does this mean the medicine isn't working?"

"Was your urine brownish red," the nurse continued without answering Hermione's question. "Or was it pinkish red."

"Pinkish red," Hermione answered distractedly. "I don't really see—"

"You aren't bleeding," the nurse cut her off. "One of the medications we gave you was Doxorubicin, which will be present in your urine for the rest of the day. You just need to keep up on fluids and eventually the color will disappear from your urine."

"Don't you think that is something you should share with the patient at the beginning of treatment," Severus scathed, instinctually putting his body between Hermione and the nurse. "How many unhealthy patients do you see in here? What if she'd had a weak heart, and had gone into cardiac arrest over something that would not have even scared her if you had simply informed your patient of the side effects."

"She isn't my patient," the nurse stammered, backing up from Severus with her hands raised in front of her like she thought he was going to strike her. "Dr. Chen usually has her nurses go over things like that with the patient, but I wasn't her nurse. I'm just covering a lunch break."

"It's okay," Hermione said quickly when it looked like Severus was going to unleash his acerbic tongue on the nurse once more. "If you could ask Dr. Chen to write up any of the instructions I should have gotten from the nurse so I have them for the future I would appreciate it."

"And the other nurse needs to be taken off of the case," Severus snapped. "Immediately."

"Yes sir," she answered quickly before scurrying out of the room.

* * *

"It just looks like a sunburn," Hermione said as Severus helped her into the truck much later in the day. "I expected it to look much worse, and to be more painful. I expected I would be feeling horrible right about now. I'm not sure how to process feeling energetic right now."

"Maybe the nap did you some good," Severus said, and while he could hear the skepticism in his voice, she didn't seem to notice it as she stared happily out of the window.

"I hope they don't put that nurse on my case again," she said with a slight frown. "Forgetting some things I can forgive, but not even telling me they'd given me Benadryl? What if I'd been standing up when the drugs had knocked me out?"

"I'd have caught you," he shrugged as he pulled into traffic. "But you would have sat down first, you're not an idiot."

"That's high praise coming from you," she chuckled. "Maybe the nap was good. I feel pretty good right now."

He refrained from pointing out that he didn't think this was going to last. Instead he focused on driving them out of the town to the little country home that they would now be sharing. She seemed content to just watch the wheat fields slip by around them, so he didn't feel compelled to make any conversation as he drove. Instead he was keeping a running inventory in her head of her appearance. So far her cheeks were still pink, her energy seemed to be up, she wasn't sweating, and in general she seemed in good health. He didn't want to bring down her good mood by reminding her there was a reason that Dr. Chen had told her to take it easy.

"I could cook dinner for us tonight," she offered as he parked the truck outside of the little blue house. "After we pack everything into the house of course."

"I was thinking of ordering in actually," he decided on the spot. "So how about I load the things into the house, and you can organize your room while we wait for dinner to arrive?"

"Can I at least carry the light stuff," she asked as they climbed out of the truck. "You don't have to wait on me. Really you've done enough already. Too much probably."

"Just be careful," he relented while silently promising to keep a closer eye on her while she was moving about the house.

When she wasn't paying attentions he cast lightening charms on the bags she was reaching for, a breathed just a little easier when she lifted it with ease. To keep himself from hovering he preceded her into the house, cursing the two stone steps that lead to the door and all of the risks that came with them. He was focused entirely on the sound of her feet as she walked behind them, but he managed not to run into anything as he lead her into her new bedroom.

"This is really nice," she beamed as she set the bags she carried onto the bed. "I really like the green, and the window lets the sun in very nicely. Thank you."

He shrugged, he hadn't really stopped to think about if she would like the green paint at all. The window he had, but he wasn't about to admit that. Hermione didn't need to know that he had created this room just for her. As far as she knew the room had always been there, and it was the original carpenter who should be thanked.

"Think nothing of it," he said, turning to get more of her things from the truck. "Your clothes should fit nicely in the closet."

It was a silent instruction to stay in the room and keep the work load to a minimum, which he was relieved to see that she followed it. It took him three more trips to bring in all of her books, clothing, and painting supplies, but he did it quickly. He left them sitting in the room and stepped into the kitchen to call the for Chinese takeaway, as it was the only restaurant that would this far out.

* * *

Hermione was working studiously away in the other room when she started to notice the change. She was hanging a dress in the closet when a wave of nausea rolled over her, but she clamped her jaw shut and road it out until it felt safe enough to reach out and put the dress in the closet.

She was making a point not to take inventory of how her body was feeling, because if she did she would have to admit that her abdomen was really starting to hurt where they had radiated it, and she was getting very tired. And if she admitted she was tired she would have to admit that she felt vaguely dizzy and very much sick to her stomach. So she didn't admit any of it. Instead she wiped the sweat from her brow and she grabbed her last shirt off of the bed and walked it over to the closet.

* * *

Severus thought it would be simpler to just eat from the little white takeout cartons, but he wasn't sure if Hermione actually knew how to use chopsticks so he stuck a fork into each box and headed to her bedroom. He imagined that the fatigue would be setting in by now, so he thought it would be easier if they just ate in her bedroom, and she could go to bed afterward if she needed to.

When he stepped into the room he saw her turning away from the closet with a look of triumph on her face. He was about to offer a somewhat sarcastic congratulations on putting away all of her clothing when he noticed that her forehead was drenched in sweat and her expression was contorting. She grimaced and doubled over. He disregarded the fact that she was retching on the floor and distractedly let the food slip from his grasp and fall to the floor when he realized that she was collapsing. She lunged forward and caught her before she could fall onto the floor, and pulled her into his arms and away from the sick on the floor.

"Okay, you win," she panted tiredly into the fabric of his shirt. "I don't feel well at all."

"I didn't say a word," he pointed out, as he silently vanished the sick from the floor.

"You didn't have to," she groaned when he shifted her so he could stand and move her to the bed. "I might not be able to read your face, but I can still sense you. You are human after all."

"So are you," he pointed out quietly. "Which means you need to take it easy. Your body has been through a lot, and it's going to go through a lot more. So will you just listen when I tell you to lie down and take it easy?"

"Yes," she agreed tiredly, though she tried to fight him as he lay him in the bed. "Wait, I need to brush my teeth, I just got sick all over the floor."

"We are witch and wizard are we not," he said, before tapping his wand lightly on her cheek and casting a cleansing charm.

"Minty fresh," she said with a weak smile. "I'm sorry I ruined dinner."

"Dinner isn't ruined," he corrected. "And it will still be here when you feel better. So just sleep now, we'll eat later."

She nodded and let her eyes drift closed. He took care to fluff her pillow up beneath her head and gently draped the blanket over her so she couldn't get cold. He pondered giving her a pain potion, but decided to save it for when she really needed it and instead just cast a slight cooling charm on her abdomen to ease the pain he was now pretty sure she was feeling. He watched her until her breathing evened out to the sounds of sleep, and then he stepped away from the bed.

He methodically cleaned up the pan fried noodles and orange chicken from the floor. That particular dinner was ruined, but frankly he hadn't really wanted to eat Chinese food anyway. He thought about the life debt, and how it was turning him into a nurse maid and wondered why it didn't bother him. It would have bothered him if he found himself in the kitchen cooking potato soup for James Potter, but somehow it didn't seem all that bad to do it for the woman who was sleeping in the other room.

* * *

Hermione was struggling to find her optimism as the week went on. Severus went to work each day, leaving her with a charmed coin to summon him if the need arose, and she stayed behind in the house resting. She tried to paint in order to occupy her time, but she found she was too tired. And when she wasn't tired she was in pain, or feeling too hot as he flesh seemed to heat up and turn red, or enduring painful hiccoughs, or vomiting. She absolutely hated it, but when Severus was in the house she tried to put on a brave face. When he was at work she allowed herself a moment to cry. Usually the tears came when she thought about the fact that she would have to go into the hospital for another round of radiation that night.

Later in the week it got both better and worse. The hiccoughs went away, but then the muscle spasms in her legs started. The heat that had built up under her skin and in her chest receded just a bit, and but the utter exhaustion started. By Friday what she considered the worst of it started, her mind began to wander from her. She couldn't carry on much of a conversation with Severus because she continually forgot what she was talking about or which word she meant. She couldn't focus long enough to read, and more than once found herself staring at a palette full of mixed paint unable to remember what it had been for.

Sunday was the closest she got to feeling normal since it had all started. Her mind was only slightly hazy and the nausea had passed. Sunday was also the day that she broke down and cried in front of Severus. He tried to talk her through it, but it was hard to gather what she was crying about when he couldn't understand her through the tears.

Instead she flipped up her t-shirt and exposed her inflamed abdomen for him to see and pointed at the grouping of tiny tattoos that radiologist had given her to mark when he needed to radiate her. Her skin hurt, and she was cramping, and it burned when she peed, but what seemed to bother her most was that she was going to have those damn dots for the rest of her life.

"Hermione they look like freckles," he pointed out quietly when he understood what she was crying about, or what she thought she was crying about anyway.

"They're blue," she moaned at him. "Blue dots on my red skin. I'm a freak!"

"Well if you're going to be a freak you might as well do it thoroughly," he chuckled and idea occurring to him. "Wait right here."

He went into the bathroom and dug out the aloe vera he kept for when he occasionally sustained a sunburn working out in the fields. He charmed it so it would temporarily appear to be bright green paint, and then he returned to the bedroom where Hermione was still sitting in the bed looking completely confused. He offered her a brief smile as he sat on the edge of her bed with the bottle of aloe vera and coaxed her into lifting the hem of her shirt up once more.

"Let's play connect the dots," he chuckled as he squirted some of the altered aloe vera into his hand and offered it to her.

When she just tilted her head and stared at him he gave her a scowl, but then he scooped up some of the pretend paint on his finger and gently drew a line connecting one dot to another. He saw way she relaxed slightly as the cooling aloe began working and he offered her another smile. The dots didn't give him much to work with, so he connected them into a wobbly shape and filled in the center.

"There now you have a green cloud on your red stomach, but there aren't any blue dots," he said.

He waited, hoping she wasn't going to burst into tears again, and breathed out a sigh of relief when she started to giggle.

"It would make a great raspberry bush," she mused, wandlessly spelling the aloe in his hand a deep red, before she began adding dots of it amongst the cloud of green he had put there.

"The redness will fade," he told her quietly as she began swirling the colors around and spreading the aloe over her skin to sooth it. "And when this is all done we can get rid of the dots. This is just another part of the fight."

"You're right," she said quietly, spelling the aloe back to being translucent. "I'm sorry I got so upset about it."

"We both know that's only part of why you were upset, which is why I am not holding it against you," he said as he offered the rest of the now clear aloe in his hand for her use. "You don't feel well, and you know you have to go to chemo again in the morning, and you have cancer. So you're allowed to be upset. You just aren't allowed to quit. Okay?"

"Okay," she said, making a bold move and pushing his hand full of aloe down onto her puffy abdomen.

He was surprised that she was allowing so much contact, especially from him. But she looked so peaceful when her eyes drooped closed, and a smile crept onto her face when he began gently massaging the aloe in. No he told himself, this was not something he would have done for James Potter, but he couldn't quite put his finger on what made Hermione Granger different.


	10. Chapter 10

_**Without friends no one would choose to live, though he had all other goods.**_

_**-Aristotle**_

* * *

"Hermione," Severus said stepping into her room with the cordless phone in hand. "The phone is for you."

"Oh, really?" she said with a quirked brown as she pulled herself up off the floor and reached for the phone. "Who would be calling for me?"

"Mr. Leckerby," he explained as he handed the phone over and promptly exited the room.

Hermione pretended not to notice how he immediately became formal when one of her friends from the artist's commune was involved and she pressed the phone to her ear as she sunk back onto the floor. She wasn't feeling bad yet, but she was smart enough this time around to know that she wouldn't get much further into the evening before she started to get ill once more.

"Brandon!" she said cheerfully once she was settled. "How are you?"

"I'm well," he answered, his deep voice practically vibrating the phone in her hand. "We haven't seen you in a while, and all of us were getting worried."

"The first week was…" she said trying to find the right words. "Quite the adjustment period. I couldn't think much beyond that. I should have called you though. I'm sorry.'

"It's okay," he said dismissively. "Would you be up for dinner tonight? I could come pick you up, and we could all go to the bistro in town."

"Tonight isn't a good idea," she sighed. "I just got home from chemo, and I give it another thirty minutes before I start getting really sick, and tomorrow will be pretty bad too. But I could do dinner after my radiation treatment on Wednesday. I'll be tired, but the nausea should have passed by then."

"Wednesday sounds great," Brandon answered, but she could tell he was thinking about her symptoms rather than the food. "If it would be easier for you, we could bring dinner to you."

"I'm already going to be in town for my appointment, we might as well go out somewhere," Hermione said, forcing more cheer into her voice than was strictly necessary. "If you want I could talk to Severus about just staying at the house that night. As long as I had a ride to my appointment Thursday night I don't think it would be a problem."

"It would be nice to have you in the house again," he said, his voice becoming so soft it was hard to hear over the phone for a moment. "What time should I pick you up on Wednesday?"

"My appointment should be over around seven," she answered. "I'll meet you outside the hospital."

"Sounds great," he said, the smile returning to his voice. "See you then."

"Bye," she said softly before she clicked the phone off, turning to look at Severus who was standing in in the doorway once more. "Hey, you want a night off from babysitting duty?"

He reached out for the phone, coming to her this time instead of waiting for her to stand. He offered her a brief nod before exiting the room. It occurred to her that he might actually be angry that she had made a plan to leave without even mentioning it to him. Their relationship was so confusing as it was, so navigating what would or would not upset the other person was difficult. She pulled herself up off the floor with the intention of going to apologize to him, but was quickly deterred to the bathroom as the first wave of nausea hit her.

When the retching had stopped, and the toilet had ben flushed Severus joined her in the bathroom. He pressed a cool damp rag to the back of her neck and sat quietly with her on the floor while she tried to breathe through the rolling waves in her stomach.

"Maybe a cool bath would help," he suggested when she had slumped against the side of the tub after the worst of the sickness had passed.

"I'm sorry I didn't ask your opinion first," Hermione sighed, letting her eyes droop closed as she tried to focus through the way her mind was fogging as she grew hotter and hotter. "I didn't mean to seem ungrateful."

"I'm not upset with you," he said quietly as he reached up to first check her temperature, and then turn on the tap to start filling the tub with cool water. "I'm upset that I have been so stern that you don't think you can have your friends over here. The move wasn't to separate you from them, it was just to simplify your medical care."

"It's not like that," she explained, peeling her eyes open to meet his gaze once more. "I don't want them to come here. This place is separate. Apart. Somewhere I don't have to hide anything. This is our place."

"Your friends seem very open," Severus said, his features softening somewhat at her words. "You could probably tell them all of your secrets without fear of alienation."

"Only breaking the law," she said with a weak chuckle before closing her eyes again. "I don't know if I can stay awake for a bath. I'm so hot."

"That's because you have a fever," he said quietly as he turned off the tap. "So you definitely need the cool bath. Do you want me to give you a pepper up potion so you can stay awake for it?"

"Let's see how the cold water helps and go from there," she groaned as she pushed herself up off of the floor. "Do you have any more of that milk bath stuff you made?"

"I do," he said pulling a jar from beneath the sink and sprinkling some of the mixture into the water before stepping back. "I'll be out in the kitchen if you think you need the pepper up potion. Just call out for me."

Hermione nodded as he slipped out of the room. As soon as he had closed the door she set to work on the arduous task of removing her clothing. Mondays were rapidly becoming her least favorite day of the week. They were long, and hard, and left her feeling like death might be the better option. But she slugged on, pushing death from her mind, and slipping into the very cold water in hopes that the fever would pass and she would stop feeling as if her body were being cooked from the inside out.

* * *

Hermione woke in the night, and her fever still hadn't broken. She was half delirious from it but she still managed to drag her ailing body out of bed. She first went for her wand, but found her energy stores too depleted to cast any sort of cooling charm. So she decided that the next best course of action was to press a towel full of ice to the back of her neck rather than waking Severus at nearly three in the morning to cast the spells for her.

She was no familiar enough with the house to feel comfortable moving about in the dark, so she did not flip on any lights as she made her way out of the room. She had to cross the living room to get to the kitchen, and she saw that the moonlight was bleeding in through the curtains creating a fair amount of light for her. She also saw that Severus had fallen asleep on the couch where he had apparently been reading.

Her feet carried her over to him on their own accord, and she found herself staring down at his prone form. He must have felt overly warm as well, as he had unbuttoned his jacket and his oxford shirt leaving his chest and abdomen exposed. She found herself staring at his sculpted muscles, and where they were torn by scars. His abs looked like they would be hard to the touch, but she found that her fingers itched to trace the scars there. She realized she was treading in dangerous water, and likely out of her mind with fever so she backed away from him and continued on her way to the kitchen.

She pulled the dish towel off of where it hung on the handle to the stove door and tip toed over to the refrigerator. She could be quiet walking, and gathering what she needed, but there was no way to be quiet about cracking ice trays. After the first crack she heard a stirring in the living room, but she hoped it was just the sound of him rolling over in his sleep, and she continued to work.

She cracked the tray once more, and then began depositing all of the ice in the pouch she had created with the kitchen towel. She filled it to the brim and tied it shut before depositing the ice tray in the sink. She knew she should refill it, but she didn't want to add the sound of running pipes and officially wake Severus up. She pressed the ice to the back of her neck and let out a tiny sigh of relief as the coolness began to seep into her skin. It didn't clear the fever entirely, but it made her feel cool enough to try lying down in bed once more.

Her heart nearly erupted out of her chest when she turned to head back and found Severus awake, and standing in the doorway that lead into the living room. She noted that he had buttoned his shirt up, but did not say anything. He was quiet as he approached her, and still seemed somewhat dead on his feet as he reached out to touch the back of his hand to her forehead. It felt cold when pressed against the heat of her skin, and she was loath to admit she wanted him to touch her more if only to ease the heat.

"You need a fever reducer," he said in a husky sleep filled voice. "And cooling spells. Why didn't you cast them?"

"My magic isn't working," she answered quietly when he drew his wand.

He remained silent as he first summoned a potion vial and placed it in her hand, and then began casting cooling charms on her. Instantly it felt like her muscles turned to liquid when the heat began to recede from her body.

"Your energy stores are depleted," he said reassuringly. "Your magic will return when your energy does."

"You'd think it wouldn't bother me to be without magic," she whispered. "I mean I was a muggle from a decade of my life, but it feels very strange to me."

"It shall pass," he assured her as he stepped to the side and indicated she should head back to her bedroom. "You should wait to take the fever reducer until you are lying down. It has a mild sedative in it, and I would prefer you not pass out on the kitchen floor."

"I'm sorry I woke you," Hermione apologized as she started walking away.

"I shouldn't have fallen asleep on the couch to begin with," he shrugged. "I'll thank you for it in the morning when I do not have a kink in my neck."

Without further ado he headed off to his own bedroom and Hermione was on her own again. She decided to keep the ice, since her chest was always burning the night after chemo, and returned to her bed. She settled amongst the pillows and quickly drank the potion Severus had given her before pacing the ice on her chest and relaxing. She scoffed a bit at the idea that the sedative was mild when she immediately felt herself drifting to sleep once more.

* * *

It seemed she had just closed her eyes when she found herself in what had to be a dream world. She could say for sure if it was a nightmare or not. The walls were tattered, and though it looked different somehow she knew instinctually that she was in the shrieking shack. She was not alone however. Standing in front of her was Severus Snape, but he was not a Severus Snape she had encountered in this lifetime.

He was wearing a billowing set of robes, but they seemed to be more blue than black, and there was embroidery along the collar. His white shirt was just visible underneath it, but her attention was focused on the fact that they hung open revealing a chiseled chest. There was a sprinkling of chest hair, and she had a much better view of the scars that cut across his abs this time. There was something enticing about the way he stood there before her, proud of his body and not at all upset with her looking at it. He had one had extended out to her and he kept calling out to her.

"Come to me," he said over and over again in an ethereal voice that seemed to be full of hunger.

He did not say anything inappropriate, but there was something about the way that he spoke to her that seemed to drip with eroticism. Nothing else happened in the dream. He just stood there calling out to her, making her hungry for something she hadn't been hungry for in a long time.

She woke with a jolt, the bright sunlight of early spring shinning in her window. She found that she was covered in sweat but her fever seemed to have broken. Her night shirt was soaked through where the ice had melted in the middle of her chest and she wished she could cast a drying spell on it. Instead she shook her head, trying to clear it of the strange fever dream that had plagued her through the night, and she drug herself out of bed. A shower was definitely in order.

* * *

Hermione wasn't exactly feeling spritely after her radiation treatment on Wednesday evening, but the muscle spasms hadn't really started up again just yet, and the heat had faded away when the fever had broken. So even though she was incredibly tired she managed to push a real smile onto her face when Brandon met her outside of the hospital. He was driving the Prius that was covered in all sorts of paintings and doodles from all of the different artists on the commune that had driven it.

"So where are we going for dinner?" she asked as she slid into the passenger seat.

"We will be dinning at the fine establishment of Casa de Artist," he said with a chuckle as he pulled away from the curb. "Chefs Sierra and Micah are already hard at work."

"I take it we will be having smoothies for dinner?" Hermione laughed.

"Nope," he said popping the p. "Sierra broke the blender, so no smoothies for anyone until we get a new one."

"Oh this should be interesting" she said, sinking more fully into her seat as they whipped through the streets that separated the hospital and the house.

She was surprised to smell the distinct aroma of steak in the air and she couldn't help but offer Brandon a beaming smile. The vegetarians were making her a steak! A steak sounded absolutely perfect right about now, so she pushed her tired body to move into the kitchen just a little bit faster. They had even put out a table cloth to cover the paint stained table. She felt bad that she hadn't even called them during the first week of treatment, and here they were being so nice to her anyway.

"Do you need help with the salad," she asked while Brandon began pouring glasses of wine for everyone.

"No you just sit tight," Micah smile at her as he started plating his grilled treats, one steak and three large mushrooms. "Dinner is just about ready."

Hermione followed instructions and took a seat at the table. In the blink of an eye she had a plate of food in front of her, a glass of wine in her hand, and her friends all around her. She felt radiantly happy even if it did feel like someone was missing. The others began to eat immediately so she excitedly began to cut up her steak.

"Mmm, you make a mean steak Micah," she groaned after the first bite.

"You can learn just about anything from a book," he shrugged, and a little piece of her fell in love with him for saying that.

* * *

When dinner had gone, and the delicate conversation about how her treatments were going had passed Hermione found herself seated on the porch swing as if she had never left. Sierra and Micah were sitting out in the grass tossing a ball of clay back and forth and only listening with half an ear to the conversation that she and Brandon were having. He was asking about how she was handling all of the changes, and she was doing her best not to lie about it.

"Now that it's been a few weeks I can almost pretend the scars are normal," she said quietly. "But every once in a while I catch sight of them in the mirror when I am changing and it scares me. They don't bother me nearly as much as the tattoos for the radiation therapy though."

She thought about telling him how Severus had made her feel better about the tattoos, but that memory felt a little too private to share. She also kept to herself that she had basically forgotten about the scars on her chest and abdomen that day simply because Severus had not acknowledged their existence.

"You can always have them removed later," he said quietly as he pulled her into a gentle hug.

It was nice to feel his strong arms wrapped around her, and she felt soothed when he kissed her forehead like her mother used to. She noticed that seemed to grab Sierra's attention in particular but the other girl did not say anything about it.

"If I make it," Hermione said quietly. "I won't have my new set of scans until next week, so I don't have much of an idea of if this is even working. Other than making me sick I don't know if it's doing anything."

"Have faith," he said quiet, giving her a gentle squeeze once more, but not releasing his hold on her. "I've been praying for you every night."

Hermione decided not to point out that she wasn't the praying type. Instead she just enjoyed the falling night in the company of her friends. Brandon gently rocked the swing, and she found herself drifting into a half asleep state of contentment at his side.

* * *

Hermione woke the next morning in the bed of the room that had been hers, though it had no signs of personality in it now. She assumed someone must have carried her to bed, and removed her shoes to boot. The sun seemed high outside her window and she wondered what time it was. She needed the loo, but even from her supine position she could feel the muscle spasms. She knew she would only hurt herself if she tried to walk to the bathroom right now, and suddenly she regretted staying in town instead of out in the country. What good did her enchanted coin do right now? It wasn't like she could summon Severus out of the wheat fields and into this house to help her to the bathroom without drawing unnecessary attention.

So instead she lay there until she heard the front door creak open. She called out to whoever it was and was happy to discover it was Sierra who had come inside. It was the least embarrassing person to ask for help walking to the bathroom. Sierra seemed perfectly content helping her, and didn't ask questions about why her legs were twitching so much for which she was grateful.

"What time is it?" she asked when Sierra was helping her out onto the front porch to sit on the swing.

"It's almost two," she said as she joined Hermione on the swing. "You slept for a long time, but no one wanted to disturb you. Do you feel any better today?"

"I don't feel as tired today," Hermione shrugged, unable to say she felt better, but not wanting to expand on her ailments.

"Is this treatment making you better?" Sierra asked very quietly. "Or is it making you worse?"

"Sometimes I feel like it's making me worse," she admitted. "But the surgery eradicated a lot of the cancer, and I have to believe the chemo is killing the rest of it. Otherwise I don't think I'll be able to go in for more treatments."

"I don't know how to be brave like you," Sierra whispered. "Seeing you like this, looking so broken, it really scares me. I don't want to touch you for fear of breaking you."

"Sometimes I just pretend to be brave," Hermione shrugged, her mind wander to other times she had been afraid for her life. "Fake it until you make it and all that."

"I'll have to try that," she giggled. "For now I should go though, it looks like Micah wants a word."

Hermione followed her line of sight and saw that Micah was walking up the path, and did seem to have his sights set on her. Sierra disappeared into the house leaving Hermione waiting on her own. She couldn't explain it, but she sensed she was about to get a lecture and she wasn't looking forward to it. Micah offered her a beaming smile as he took up residence on the swing beside her.

"So here's the thing," he said somberly as he started to swing them gently. "You're really sick, and I shouldn't be chiding you but I think I have to. Because I don't think you quite realize what you seem to be doing."

Hermione just stared at him. She was completely bemused, and had no idea what to make of what he was saying. So she waited for him to explain.

"Brandon is completely over the moon for you," he went on quietly. "And I don't think you see that. Because you don't see that, I don't think you realize you are inadvertently encouraging it."

"What?" she said honestly confused.

"Tell me you see the secret smiles he gives you," he explained. "Or the way he goes out of his way to touch you. I mean honestly, he kissed your forehead last night. Ask yourself Hermione, when is the last time a man who was not your father and you were not dating kissed you on the forehead?"

"What should I do?" she asked meekly when she realized he was right. "I didn't mean to lead him on in anyway. I'm not exactly at a point in my life where I am looking to start a relationship. I mean, I don't have any guarantee of being alive next week, why would I engage in something like that?"

"Just try to keep some space between you too," he shrugged. "Brandon is smart, he should figure it out pretty quickly, but if he doesn't, if he makes a bolder move, you're going to have to say something to him Hermione."

* * *

Sierra had helped with the distance thing and intervened in giving Hermione a ride to her next treatment. Hermione saw the way Brandon looked a bit hurt but she hadn't reacted in an effort to create distance. She just focused her mind on the upcoming treatment, and looked straight ahead as Sierra drove them away from the house.

Hermione hated to admit it, but she wasn't sure she could go back to the house for a while. Perhaps conversations over the phone would have to do for now. She couldn't help but wonder at what the right answer was as she stared up at the white machine that was currently pumping radiation into her abdomen. She wondered how to deal with Brandon, and if she should distance herself from Sierra and Micah as well in order to spare his more tender feels, but most of all she found herself wondering about Severus.

She had been speaking earnestly when she said that she wasn't at a point in her life where seeking a relationship was an option. But she couldn't deny that the strange fever dream about Severus had clung to her. What did Severus think of her as? Was she a burden to him? Was she a friend? Was she something more? She didn't really know, and she certainly didn't have the intestinal fortitude to just come out an ask him but she found she really wanted the answer.

Her skin felt particularly tender when she left her appointment, but she tried not to think about how uncomfortable it was to have the cotton of her shirt rubbing against her irritated flesh. Severus was waiting patiently for her in the reception area as if he had been there the entire time, and she couldn't stop herself from offering him a beaming smile. Her thoughts seemed to wander from her when she tried to remember why she was so happy to see him but the feeling was still there.

"Um…" she said, her face flushing as she searched for the right word.

"Hello," he said with a brief half smile.

"Yes, that's the one!" she chirped as he stood. "Hello."

"I see the fog has settled," he said without inflection before offering her his elbow. "The spasming does not seem as bad as last time however."

She took his arm with a smile, and allowed him to lead her out of the hospital into his waiting truck. Hermione was very tired. Her body was tired, but more than that her mind was tired. Climbing into bed and sleeping for an entire week didn't seem at all unreasonable when she contemplated it within the cabin of the truck. Severus seemed entirely focused on the road, but Hermione got the impression that he was paying more attention to her than he would like her to realize.


	11. Chapter 11

"_**There are many who don't wish to sleep for fear of nightmares. Sadly, there are many who don't wish to wake for the same fear."**_

― _**Richelle E. Goodrich**_

* * *

Things had been going well. They were going exceptionally well in Severus's opinion. They were four weeks into the treatments, and while they still affected Hermione, they seemed to be working. She had gone in for a new set of scans just last week, and while things did not seem to be drastically better, there were no signs of cancer developing in new areas. Perhaps they hadn't cured the cancer yet, but it appeared that had at least stopped a forward progression of it. He had believed that until the fateful Saturday afternoon when he had finished early in the fields, and arrived home to find Hermione having an argument with an invisible person in the kitchen. He had asked her what she was doing, and she seemed to immediately come to her senses and promptly asked him if he wanted help making dinner that evening.

He decided not to press it at the moment. He hadn't heard her clearly, and it was very well possible she had simply been speaking to herself. He couldn't say he had never done that in the depths of the dungeons when he still taught at Hogwarts.

* * *

Unfortunately the issue did seem to abate. Just a few days later he was in the kitchen preparing a light dinner for the two of them when he heard her speaking in her bedroom. She sounded distressed and it drew his attention immediately. He dropped the plates back onto the counter and hurried through the house to check on her.

"How did you get here?" he heard her ask in a fearful voice, staring at the wall across from her bed with tears in her eyes.

He stepped into the doorway hoping to draw her attention to him and away from whatever hallucination was upsetting her so greatly.

"I don't know how you manage to get out, or to find me," she spat anger warring against her fear as she railed at this invisible force. "But I know Azkaban would not have just released you like that, and they certainly wouldn't have told you where to find me."

"Hermione," he called when he realized that she was hallucination Ronald Weasley. "Hermione, look at me."

"Please, please just go away," she begged him. "I left. I left your family for you, the house for you, everything. You still have a life in England, you don't have to punish me for taking anything from you."

"Hermione, listen to me," Severus said as he began crossing slowly toward her. "It's just you and I in the room right now."

"No, no!" She screeched, causing Severus to lurch ever so slightly.

Things seemed to happen in slow motion after that. He watched Hermione jerk back and if he hadn't known better he would have actually believed she had been hit with a curse. Then her body slumped toward the bed and she began to seize. Intellectually he understood that she had gone into some sort of seizure, but for just a moment his mind saw something else. The twitching and the groaning sounded an awful lot like someone being tortured by the cruciatus curse and it made his blood run cold.

He leapt into action, pulling her as gently as he could into a position on her side. He placed a line of pillows between her body and the wall in an effort to keep her from injuring herself. He noted that this was a tonic-clonic seizure, and then he began to count slowly in his head. He estimated that roughly ten seconds had passed before he had begun to count and went from there. He found himself praying to Merlin that she would stop seizing before a full three minutes had passed. Either way she was going to need medical attention, but the three minute mark would be the kiss of death in her condition.

He stared, transfixed, as vomit pooled on the bed near her mouth and he legs tangled in her blankets due to their thrashing. It was easily the worse thing he had seen since the end of the war, but he kept watching and counting. At 116 second her body went still, and the room was silent other than the sound of her labored breathing. Time seemed to jump forward into regular speed with a lurch, and he found himself hurrying forward to scoop her up into his arms.

He ran from the room, carrying her limp form as delicately as he could. His heart was thumping so loudly that it seemed it was the only thing he could hear as he quickly loaded her into the truck, laying her across the bench seat, before he flew around to the other side and jumped in. He carefully pulled her head into his lap, keeping one arm draped over her torso so he could hold her unconscious form on the seat, and he started the truck and threw it into gear.

He was thankful that the roads seemed empty because he was not following any traffic laws. He was rather certain he would have run any car in his path off the road if the obstacle had been put in his path. Luckily for everyone, Abbeville was a sleepy town that rarely saw a lot of traffic with most residents choosing to walk about town instead. He screeched to a stop in the emergency bay of the hospital, actually leaving a trail of burning rubber in his wake.

He flew out of the truck, moving Hermione as gently as he could, as he ran with her into the hospital leaving the truck where it sat. Her tiny body seemed far too heavy in his arms as it remained motionless. The sliding glass doors moved aside to allow him entrance and he immediately drew the attention of the nurse behind the intake counter. He imagined it made quite a sight, him dressed in his black frock coat with his hair flying every which way and the unconscious woman in his arms looked far worse. At some point during the seizure her head scarf had fallen away, and the long sleep shirt she was wearing was bunched up in his arms exposing more of her legs than was decent. It seemed quicker than he could blink a gurney had been pulled in, and Hermione had been taken from his arm.

"Sir, what happened?" One nurse asked, while two others wheeled Hermione away.

"She had a seizure that was precipitated by an intense hallucination," he said, sweeping forward to following Hermione, and forcing the nurse to follow in his wake. "She is a patient on the oncology wing of this hospital, you should send for Dr. Chen straight away."

The nurse nodded and hurried away to make the call, leaving him free to slip into the room where they had taken Hermione. He stood against the wall watching in horrified fascination as they attached machines and wires to her chest and arms. He was unable to look away as they tore open her gown and placed to paddles to her exposed chest, using them to shock her. He cringed when her body jerked up off of the bed they had placed her on, but then he heard the incessant buzzing sound return to the gentle beeping he had heard when she had been in the recovery room after her surgeries and he understood that they must have done something to her heart.

"Mr. Snape," Dr. Chen said as she slid into the room with the doctor he remembered from Hermione's brain surgery in tow. "Can you give me a more detailed account of what happened this afternoon?"

"I heard her talking to someone in the other room," he said as he watched the neurologist begin examining Hermione, who looked like she may be waking up. "We were home alone, so I went to see what was going on, and I realized that was having a very vivid hallucination of her ex-husband. I tried to get her attention, but she could not hear me speaking. Then she began seizing."

"How long did the seizure last?" the neurologist asked from where he stood shinning a light into Hermione's eyes.

"Roughly 116 seconds," Severus answered curtly. "She vomited during it, but did not appear to have sustained any injuries."

"I need to get her in for scans," he expounded. "He scans appeared to be clear a week ago, but it's possible that something was missed or has grown rapidly since then."

"Why don't we go out to the waiting room Mr. Snape?" Dr. Chen said quietly drawing his attention back to her and away from the fact that Hermione's bed was being wheeled out of the room.

Severus followed her because he didn't know what else to do. He would have to wait to hear what the scans said, and what the doctors intended to do about it, so he may as well sit with their doctor while he waited. She was familiar enough with them to know that he wouldn't want to talk, and she wouldn't force him to unless it was strictly necessary. He was surprised however when she reached out and cupped his forearm gently and told him not to worry.

* * *

They had found a surprisingly small tumor growing in her brain, and had taken her into surgery right away. The doctors assured him that everything had gone smoothly in the surgery, but Hermione did not wake up afterwards like she had every other time. They kept the tube down her throat breathing for her while she slept on. She seemed to be in some sort of coma, but that didn't seem to stop them from continuing to fight her cancer.

A small team came in the next day and administered her chemotherapy drugs, but it was determined that she would not receive radiation treatments for the time being. A part of him was glad that she slept on so she could not suffer through the side effects of the treatments they were giving her. It seemed they were taking a certain license with her being unconscious and giving her chemo treatments more frequently.

Severus worked half days on the farm, so he could spend most of his time at her bedside, but he found each day that he was terrified she would not be there when he returned. He feared that she would die while he was working, and her body would have been taken away before he could return. Dr. Chen tried to explain to him that she was in a medically induced coma and that he should not be afraid of her passing away during the few hours that he was away from her bedside, but he found he could not simply take her word for it.

He wasn't exactly sure when it had happened, but he found that he was rather attached to the witch in the bed before him. He would not, could not, just let her go now. He whispered many things to her each night as he sat vigil at her bedside, but the most frequent was the request that she fight. He implored her not to give up now. He asked her to wake up, but she never listened to him.

* * *

Two and a half weeks later her eyes opened, and a nurse appeared to remove the tube from her throat. He waited with bated breath to see if she would speak or move, or be able to do anything at all. She blinked up at the ceiling for a second or two before her mouth began moving. Her voice was barely a whisper, but if he focused hard enough he could understand what she was croaking out.

"Severus," she called barely louder than a whisper, and he was instantly at her side.

"I am here Hermione," he assured her, unable to stop himself from reaching out to hold her hand.

"I thought I left," she whispered, and though her voice sounded awful, it had been so long since he heard her speak he couldn't bring himself to chide her into silence. "It was dark, and I was so afraid."

"You tried to go," he said, his voice catching in his throat. "But I wouldn't let you. I said we were going to fight this to the end and I meant it."

"Everything hurts Severus," she whispered, tears beginning to pool in her eyes.

"I will call the nurse for you," he shushed, reaching out and pressing the call button.

The nurse arrived immediately and fussed over the now awake woman. Dr. Chen was called in for an examination, and only after that was the nurse allowed to give Hermione something for the pain. To Severus's dismay she immediately fell back to sleep because of it, but at least this time she was breathing on her own and seemed to be sleeping rather than what it had been before.

* * *

It was another week before they allowed Hermione to leave the hospital. Each day when I returned from the fields there was another of her friends visiting her. Severus couldn't quite put his finger one why that irritated him, but he did find it amusing that Hermione always seemed to be feigning sleep when he arrived and Brandon was there. He would have thought she was actually sleeping, but each time he and Brandon said their goodbyes, and as soon as the door had closed behind him Hermione would open her eyes and offer Severus a guilty smile.

The need for her to pretend to sleep in order to avoid her friend, for whatever reason she was avoiding him, disappeared late Sunday afternoon when he was finally able to take her home. It was nice to see her up and moving about again, even if she did seem a little slower and a little more tired than she had been in the past. Dr. Chen did not follow them out to the truck this time. They knew they were due back for chemotherapy in two days, and they had her emergency number in case anything else were to happen.

"Well, at least I don't have to do radiation anymore," Hermione said with a beaming smile as they drove away from the hospital. "Unfortunately the tradeoff for more chemo doesn't sound very appealing."

"I have come up with an idea for reducing some of the side effects," he said with an almost invisible shrug. "It's not technically legal, but what others don't know can't hurt them."

"I'm intrigued," Hermione said, turning her attention away from the road and fully onto him.

"Well you've lost weight because the nausea makes you too ill to eat," he pointed out, keeping his attention on the road. "You are also in substantial pain most days. Both of with could be helped by the inhalation of cannabis fumes, and that would remove the risk of becoming addicting to pain reliving potion."

"You're suggesting that I smoke pot?" she asked, unable to help the smirk that crept onto her face.

"Well I do happen to know a man who grows and sells it," he said, now distinctly avoiding any eye contact. "And I think you might find it helpful."

"Okay," Hermione shrugged. "Though I think we should just talk to Dr. Chen about getting a prescription instead of entering into illegal drug trade."

"Agreed," he said with a smile, and then Hermione realized he had been herding toward that answer the entire time.

"Oh, you're very good," she said with a laugh.

"I was a spy for half of my life," he said with a laugh of his own. "If you have need of it tonight however, I do have a pain potion brewed already."

* * *

Another week passed and it found Hermione doing significantly better. Severus couldn't help but laugh each night when she went outside to sit amongst the trees that grew off to the side of the house so she could continue with the illusion that she was not in fact a person who smoked pot. She needed to pretend, but he saw a marked improvement In her well-being. She ate more at meals, she slept better at night, she didn't seem to be showing as many signs of pain, not to mention a significant decrease in her anxiety. She wasn't cured, but she certainly seemed happier.

He also noticed that she took more time to devote to her friends, though she still did not visit their house again. She called them each night and spoke for roughly and hour. He noticed that she spoke to Sierra and Micah more often than she spoke to Brandon. He still choose not to think about why that pleased him, but he could not deny that it did.


	12. Chapter 12

"_**Hope, Smiles from the threshold of the year to come, Whispering 'it will be happier'..."**_

― _**Alfred Tennyson**_

* * *

"I'm Dr. Carter," a young man who did not look old enough to be a doctor said as he slid into the seat behind the desk that set in front of Hermione and Severus. "I want to talk to you about what I saw on your scans."

Hermione's back stiffened in her seat, and she automatically reached to take Severus's hand. She focused on keeping her breathing even as she lifted her gaze to meet this young doctor's eyes.

"I don't understand why Dr. Chen isn't here," Hermione said quietly.

"She is doing intake with a different patient at the moment," Dr. Carter said politely but dismissively.

"We can wait," Severus said tersely, clearly not likely the way Hermione had been brushed off.

"She is going to be with her other patient for quite some time," Dr. Cater explained. "She asked me to speak to you about your scans and the changes in care."

"I've come to a place where I can accept more bad news," Hermione said very quietly. "I am able to do that, when the bad news is delivered by Dr. Chen."

"Then I suppose it is a good thing I am not here to give you bad news," he said with a smile.

"But she is my doctor," Hermione went on, clearly not listening to him. "I don't appreciate being shuffled off."

"Dr. Chen is the head of the department," Dr. Carter said, continuing with a smile even though Hermione was clearly upset with him. "With that job comes the responsibility of dealing with the more sensitive cases. She tends to work specifically on terminal cases. So right now she is having her first appointment with a dying patient, and she has transferred you to me because you no longer fit the criteria."

"Is she in remission?" Severus asked pointedly, sitting forward in his seat to focus his attention but not releasing Hermione's hand.

"Not yet," Dr. Carter said, the smile refusing to fail. "But it looks like a real possibility now. Tumor growth has stopped, and while there are a few mets left in your abdomen that I'd like to go in and remove as soon as possible, it looks like your treatments are working. I think we can start scaling back your chemotherapy sessions as well."

"I'm sorry, I don't think I heard you properly." She stammered her heart beginning to pound more quickly in her chest.

"You aren't dying," he answered plainly. "You are living with cancer, but you are not a terminal patient any longer."

"So where do we go from here?" Severus asked when Hermione continued to flounder, her mouth moving but no sound coming out.

"For today, I think we should go through with the chemo session that was already scheduled," Dr. Carter said. "And on Friday I would like to go in for what will hopefully be the final surgery."

"Okay," Hermione finally managed to say, happy tears starting to form in her eyes as she squeezed the hand that held hers repetitively.

"Okay," Severus said in a voice that had grown much deeper as he squeezed her hand back.

* * *

Hours later found the pair of them seated in the living room of the farm house. The sun was hidden away by the clouds, and rain was pouring outside. The weather hardly fit with the celebratory mood, and it certainly wasn't conducive to allowing Hermione to sit amongst her little grove of trees and seek relief from the side effects of the treatment she had just gone through.

"Do you suppose I could have a pain potion?" she asked from where she was curled around a pillow on the couch.

"I haven't brewed any," Severus said before offering her one of the rare smiles that lit up his entire face. "I've told you already that you have my permission to smoke in the house. So long as you don't take up cigarettes."

"That would be a sad joke," Hermione laughed. "The cancer patient that starts smoking a product that causes cancer? I'd have to slap myself."

She laughed at her own joke until it turned into a groan. She buried her head in the pillow to try and hide the sound of it from Severus, but there was no point. He heard it clearly and he clucked at her.

"The rain isn't expected to let up until late into the night," he sighed. "Will you please just smoke in the house?"

"The smell will seep into your furniture," she pointed out.

"I am a wizard," he countered.

"You will see me looking like a fool," she said quietly, refusing to meet his gaze.

"I will not pass judgment on you," he sighed. "I was planning to have a celebratory drink this evening anyway, why don't I drink while you smoke. Then we can both act the part of the fool."

"Do you promise to get pissed?" she asked, her eyes lighting up at the thought of seeing him uninhibited.

"Oh, that intrigued you didn't it?" he said with a rolling chuckle that seemed to fill the room. "I cannot remember the last time I was drunk, so I cannot make that promise. But I will certainly drink with you."

"Okay," she smiled, attempting to unwrap her aching body from around the pillow.

"Sit tight, I'll grab your box for you," he said, quickly hopping up from his seat and slipping into her room.

Hermione was set on the fact that she was not going to smoke while lying on the couch. So she ignored the protests of her aching limbs and she essentially slithered off the couch until she was lying on her stomach with the pillow tucked beneath her. She had to pause, and just breath until the wave of nausea incurred by moving passed, but then she was able to roll onto her back. She lay her head on the pillow and shifted her body around until her feet were aimed out toward the door and the little light the clouds allowed shone down on her.

"Civilized people do not typically sprawl across the floor," Severus chuckled as he handed her the little wooden box she normally kept hidden in her room.

"They also don't smoke pot," Hermione pointed out with a quirked brow. "So tonight let's just pretend we aren't civilized."

He just shook his head at her and left her lying there on the floor while he disappeared into the kitchen. She listened to the sounds of him opening a bottle and pouring a drink while she methodically rolled her joint. She still couldn't help but laugh to herself when she thought of little Hermione Granger breaking all the rules now. She tapped her wand against the end, producing a spark to start it burning. She was just pressing it to her lips when Severus returned to the living room with what looked like a glass of water but smelled distinctly of vodka and slid sinuously down onto the floor beside her.

"I would have had you pegged you for a whiskey man," she laughed before she inhaled the first bit of smoke that would give her relief.

"My father was a whiskey man," he said somewhat darkly as he leaned back on his elbow so his head was closer to hers, but he wasn't actually lying on the floor like she was. "I can't stand the smell of it myself."

Hermione sensed a story there but she didn't push him. He'd tell her if he wanted too. Instead she smoked until the world blurred around the edges, and she listened to the vodka sloshing in his glass while Severus drank.

"It's nice here," she said quietly, when the pain had receded from her limbs. "With the rain, and the soft carpet, and the quiet sounds. I'd like to stay right here, in the little bubble forever."

"You are easy to please," Severus chuckled as he reached out to pull the smoldering bit before it could burn down to her fingers. "I've always taken much longer to find peace."

"But it's peaceful here isn't it?" she asked him as she closed her eyes and ran her hands over her the very short hair that was starting to grow on her head. "You have your house, and your job, and other than me there isn't anyone from your old life to trouble you. This is a nice little town, you like it here don't you."

"I do," He said after taking another drink. "It's been a nice place to settle. It's been a place of peace for me. For the record, I do not consider you a trouble."

"Mmm," she sighed, the sound of his voice lulling her into a deeper calm. "I didn't think I'd be a trouble to you long. I didn't think I'd be around much longer. I fought because you asked me to, but I didn't believe I'd be fighting long."

"I trusted a gut feeling that you would," he admitted before he finished off his drink and set the glass off to the side and turning his full attention to her. "I am relieved to see you coming around to the idea that your life isn't over."

"Maybe my life is just beginning," she said with a smile. "Maybe I'll settle down here. Maybe stay on the artist commune, or maybe I'll get a job here in town. Maybe I'll move to Africa. Anything would be better than going back to my old job in England. I think maybe I hated my job. Or I might have just hated England."

"What was your job?" he asked, wondering how this had never come up in any of their conversations before.

"I worked as an oblivator," she shrugged letting her hands flop down onto the floor and lying very still.

"I would have expected you to become a teacher," Severus admitted drawing lazy patterns in the carpet while he watched the happiness seep out of her face. "Or working high up in the ministry. Why would they put a war hero on the muggle response team?"

"I have a significant talent for removing memories," she said softly, clenching her eyes tightly shut. "I can make any muggle forget any magic they have seen, no matter how extraordinary. I could make you forget I had ever existed."

She had said it without emotion in her voice, but he saw the way her lip trembled at the end of it. He watched her as tears began to seep out from under her tightly clenched eye lids and he knew she had done just that to someone. He reached out, and gently caressed the side of her head where she had been playing with her hair.

"Who did you make forget you?" he asked quietly.

"My parents," she whispered, the tears flowing freely as she turned her head to the side so she could look at him. "I did such a good job of it that it cannot be reversed. My parents don't know they ever had a child, or that the ever even wanted one."

"You made them safe," he reassured her, shifting his hand so it wasn't pinned beneath her head anymore, and lying down so they shared the pillow while they stared up at the ceiling together. "If you could ask them, I think they would tell you they forgive you. They couldn't be the people that raised you and not be understanding."

"You're the first person whose ever thought of it from their perspective," Hermione said as she reached up to wipe her tears away. "Everyone is always so quick to tell me that I did the right thing, that I knew what was right, they never stop to think about what my parents would think was the right answer. Thank you for that."

He nodded his acceptance of what she had said but his mind was still whirring along with what she had shared with him.

"Did you take the job as an oblivator to punish yourself?" he asked.

"That was part of it," she answered, leaning her head over so it was pressed against his in a comforting way. "I think I also took it because it pleased Ron. He wanted me to have his children, so he didn't want me working as an auror with him and Harry."

"Did you want children?" he asked her, the weight of that impossibility hanging in the air between them,

"I didn't with him," she whispered. "I always thought someday in the future I would want children, but the day when I wanted them never seemed to come. Now it doesn't matter anymore does it?"

"You can't bear children," he said plainly, agreeing with her sentiment, but not agreeing either. "That doesn't mean you can't have children though. You could adopt if you wanted children."

"I don't know if I want them," she admitted. "I had given up on wanting anything, but now that I am going to live? There's a lot I'm not sure I want. There are only a couple things I do know I want."

"What do you want?" he pushed.

"I want to tell Harry and Ginny about all these things I've kept secret from them," she told him as she reached her arms up into the air and watched the flickering light from the wind blowing through the trees playing off of her skin. "I want to send them that painting of you, the one in the wheat field, because I know Harry would like it. I won't tell them you're alive if you don't want though."

"Will you move back to England?" he asked. "To be with them?"

"No I think I'll stay here in Abbeville," she whispered back. "I want a relationship, and it would be hard to have one if I moved away."

"Brandon would move to England if you asked him too," Severus pointed out even though it pained him to do it.

"Brandon?" she said, lurching up from where she lay so she could look down into his eyes. "For someone of such intelligence you have really missed the mark."

"Sierra then?" he said with a smirk.

She wasn't sure if she would have done it if she hadn't be high, and she doubted he would have let her if he hadn't been drinking, but the circumstances were what they were, and she leaned down to press her lips to his. She'd been dreaming about kissing him for days now, but she hadn't imagined it could feel quiet as amazing as it did. What felt better was the swooping sensation in her stomach when he kissed her back.

* * *

Hermione had much more vivid dreams of Severus that night, and she woke with a smile on her face. She was glad it was Sunday because it meant that Severus would still be in the house. Her body still felt a bit fatigued, but she hopped out of bed energetically anyway. She hurried into the kitchen where she could hear him puttering about. She was excited to see him, and perhaps to kiss him again, but when she saw him looking grumpy still bumming around the house in his pajamas she hesitated.

"Do you regret it?" she asked somberly from where she stood in the doorway.

"I regret drinking enough vodka to wake with a splitting headache," she said, turning away from the stove to meet her eyes. "That is all I regret however. Do you?"

"I regret that it took me so long to do it," she said as the smile crept onto her face once more.

"How long have you been thinking of doing it?" he asked with one of his patented smirks.

"Well I've been dreaming of it for a few weeks now," she admitted with a blush. "Though I have to admit I'm still surprised you kissed me back. I don't see the draw for you."

"Perhaps you should look a little more closely in the mirror then Hermione," he chuckled as he returned to the eggs on the stove. "I think you are beautiful, and you may have the only personality in the world that is actually compatible with me."

"You just think that because I'm the only person that laughs when you say something sarcastic," she chuckled as she sauntered over to the kitchen table to take a seat and watch him work.

"I also rather like your artwork," he said dismissively, though Hermione knew he was being anything but. "Though I assume that would be obvious since you somehow tricked me into painting myself."

Hermione couldn't help but smile when she thought of his artful way of cheering her up when she had been so upset about her tattoos.

"Speaking of," she piped up. "Do you think we could remove the tattoos soon?"

"We need to leave them through the last surgery, but I think we can do it after that," Severus said as he began plating the finished eggs. "The day we get the okay to end chemo treatments we can talk about the scars as well."

Hermione's smile was radiant when she thought of that. She turned the full force of it on him when he brought a plate over to her. She could certainly get used to a relationship with Severus, not that they had discussed labels the night before. Should she ask about labels? It could wait, for now she just wanted to enjoy the moment.


	13. Chapter 13

**It is better to be deceived by one's friends than to deceive them.**

**-Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe quotes**

* * *

Hermione felt like she had a new lease on life, and in a way she really did considering that she had a life to look forward to once more. She felt almost normal when she didn't think about having to go in for chemo treatments every other week. She had energy for the first time in ages, and there were actual days that were free of pain. Not hours, but actual days. She was grateful, and exuberant, and it inspired her to actually go out and try to do things.

That was what found her following Severus out into the wheat field nearest to the house on a Friday afternoon. The wheat had turned golden, and they would be harvesting it in just a few days' time. She knew he was out there today checking the grains and determining if they had yet dried enough. It was an important job to be sure, but she didn't think he would mind a little bit of a distraction.

Granted, as she began to move amongst the waving grain it occurred to her that she hadn't thought her plan through very well. She had worn sandals and shorts with a tank top and her ever present scarf. The outfit was comfortable and somewhat cute, but it did little to protect her from the stalks of the grain, or the bits of cheat grass that grew occasionally and caught her around the ankles. She always realized she didn't actually knew where he was in the field.

She just knew that she had missed him, and that the sun was shining brightly outside beckoning her out. When she had walked half the field without sight of him, and she felt herself growing tired she stopped. She pulled the scarf that was now damp with sweat from her head and allowed it to hang around her neck while closed her eyes and tried to listen for the sound of moving stalks.

"You are beautiful," she heard him say long before the whispering of sound registered in her ears as approaching footsteps. "What are doing so far out here though?"

"I missed you," she said with a shrug, dancing across the small space to wrap her arms around him. "I admit I did not think it through much. Nor did I realize just how large this field is."

"I was done for the day anyway," he chuckled. "Would you like to have dinner in town?"

"You don't want dinner in town," Hermione laughed before planting a kiss on his lips. "Let's have a picnic instead."

"You know me too well. You must take my secrets to the grave," he laughed before he turned his back to her and hunched down. "Climb up, you're already going to need cortisone cream for your ankles as it is."

Hermione could help but chuckle to herself at another man offering her a piggyback ride, but at least this time she understood what sort of gesture it was.

"You may cast a lightening charm without fear of offending me," Hermione whispered into his ear as she climbed into position. "I may even take it as a compliment. I have worked quite hard to put on weight after all."

"It looks good on you," he chuckled, gripping her thighs tightly as he began moving them through the field back toward the house. "I like that you took the scarf off today."

Hermione couldn't decide between blushing at the compliment, or focusing on the tingle in her spine from the way his hands were cupped just beneath her behind. She opted not to think at all as she tucked her head into the crook of his neck, and enjoyed the scent of him and the way their bodies moved together as he walked across the rough ground that lead them back to the house. She could feel it in her chest that growing warm feeling that she hadn't felt in so long. She wasn't ready to say it out loud, but she was falling in love with this man.

* * *

"It's still weird being in a new office," Hermione said nervously, fidgeting in her seat while they waited for Dr. Carter to arrive.

"This one has a better view of the park," he said soothingly, reaching out to still her shaking leg. "We could face the window instead of the desk if that would help."

"No, I'm okay," she sighed, allowing the movement to stop when she turned to look at him. "I'm just… I hate being at the hospital."

"Luckily for you," Dr. Carter said as he slid into the room, clearly having heard what Hermione had just said. "You will not have to come to the hospital for much longer."

"What did the tests say?" Hermione said, shooting forward to the front of her seat as she tried to process what he was saying.

"The tests say that you are in remission," he said with a smile as he set the folder full of her information on the desk. "No I know that you've heard that word before. You were transferred to me when Dr. Chen saw that you had entered partial remission. This is different though. All of your tests indicate complete remission."

"What does complete remission mean exactly?" Hermione asked, layering her hand over the warm hand squeezing her thigh.

"It means there are no longer any signs of cancer," Dr. Carter explained. "I want to keep monitoring you occasionally to make sure there is not a recurrence, but you no longer need to attend chemotherapy sessions."

"I'm cured?" Hermione choked out, surprised to find that tears were springing to her eyes.

"It's not really possible to use that word with cancer at this point," he explained. "If you stay in remission for five years we might use that term, but for now we call it complete remission."

"But I don't have cancer?" she pushed on, attempting to process his words, and stem the flow of her tears at the same time.

"You are not showing any signs of cancer," he assured her as he offered her a box of tissues.

"I don't have cancer," she gushed turning her full attention to Severus as she lost control of her tears. "I don't have cancer anymore."

She threw herself at him, and though he had never been a person that seemed to enjoy physical contact when other people were watching he did not rebuke her. He held her tightly to his chest while she cried herself out. It felt odd to be crying in the face of such good news, but she felt emptied out and filled up at the same time and the only way to process it was through tears.

"I told you," he whispered into her hair as he continued to hold her. "I told you it wasn't the end."

"Thank you," she said, surging up to kiss him again and again. "Thank you for making me fight."

Kiss.

"Thank you for being there for me."

Kiss.

"Thank you, just thank you." She gushed kissing him once more before she began wiping at her tears.

"Always," he said simply as he began wiping her tears for her.

Severus was feeling a lot of things in that moment. He felt the strange sizzle in his chest as the life debt between them dissolved. He felt happiness and hope at the very idea of never having to watch her body fall apart after another chemo treatment. He felt warmth that spread through his entire being that she turned to him when she needed comfort and when she wanted to celebrate. And there was a tiny little bit of him that felt afraid that she might leave now that she didn't need his help.

* * *

When the day had settled, and Hermione and Severus had returned to his little farm house and eaten their dinner and gone their separate ways for the night, that was when Hermione really started to think about what remission meant. She lay in bed, staring up at the ceiling, thinking for a long time and she realized that what it really meant was that she couldn't keep holding her past away at an arm's length. She had kept telling herself that it was the right choice not to speak with them when she wasn't going to be around much longer, but even that flimsy excuse didn't hold up when she had her life back.

She wasn't ready to go back to England, and she wasn't even sure she was ready to see them in person yet, but she could write them a letter. So she climbed back out of bed and found a sketchbook. Harry and Ginny would know it was her without a signature that way, but she didn't want to wake Severus to ask for parchment. She at least had her set of pens so she didn't have to write a letter with paint or charcoal.

_Harry and Ginny,_

_I'm sorry that it's been so long since I've spoken with you. I know it's been nearly a year and I haven't even written to you, and that is unforgivable. I considered my reasons valid at the time, but in hindsight I think I may have been wrong. I had so much going on in my head, and I didn't feel like I could tell you all about any of it, but a friend has helped me to realize that a series of catastrophic events may have clouded my ability to think clearly. So I am sorry for that._

_I'm also sorry for what I am about to tell you, but I will preface it by telling you that the story ends well and thus you should try not to become too upset. When Ronald… did what he did I did want to run away, but I wasn't very honest about what I was running from. Yes I was upset with him, and yes I felt detached from our group because of it, but that wasn't really why I wanted to leave._

_As you know the argument between Ronald and I centered on the appointment we had with a healer, but more happened at that appointment than Ronald knew about, and I couldn't seem to find the words to tell the words to tell any of you afterward. Still finding the words is difficult, but when I don't have to make eye contact it seems just a little easier. _

_I came to France to die. It's a simple sentence, but it seems that the paper is much heavier now that I have written it. After Ronald left the appointment, and I made the healer run tests again it was found that I wasn't pregnant. Instead they found that I had late stage ovarian cancer and that they couldn't treat it. I had still be trying to processes my own death sentence when the even you are both privy too took place in my former home._

_I was upset, and afraid, and I had no idea what to do, so I ran. I came here, and I painted, and I made friends with a few of the artist's here, and I tried to be okay with the idea that I was going to die. I got steadily worse, but I remained detached from it all and still didn't really process the idea that my life was ending. Until a friend found out and rather bluntly that my life was not over, that instead the fight for my life was just starting._

_I listened. I underwent treatment. I had five surgeries, and frankly I lost count of how many radiation treatments and chemotherapy treatments I had, but they worked. Earlier today I was diagnosed as being in complete remission. Just under a year ago I was given a death sentence, and today I can say with a smile that I am cancer free. Perhaps I should have told you, and perhaps I should not have run away to France, but something deep inside tells me this was the way it had to happen. In order to live I had to come her. In order to even want to live I needed to be here._

_I am not ready to return to England, and I don't know if I ever will be. I do however miss the two of you. I'd like to write one another if that is alright. I've decided that I am going to find work down here and finally really settle as a member of the community, but I don't want to mean that I lose the two of you. I hope you won't be too angry with me, and that you'll write me back but I understand if you don't. I'm including a piece I painted while here as a bit of a peace offering. I'm actually quite proud of it, and I think Harry in particular will really like it even if I didn't quite get the facial features right. Just tap your wand on the frame with a finite incantatem and it will return to the proper size. _

_All My Love,_

_Hermione _

In the end Hermione woke Severus early, just as the sun was rising, and asked him to help her send her letter. The nearest wizarding town was far enough away that it would have made more sense to simply apparate into England, so they opted to mail the letter through muggle post to the address at Leaky Cauldron where wizarding post was forwarded on for a small fee. While they drove home Hermione asked Severus if he thought it was a crazy idea to petition the ministry of magic for funding in research for curing cancer.


	14. Chapter 14

"_**Love recognizes no barriers. It jumps hurdles, leaps fences, penetrates walls to arrive at it destination full of hope."**_

_**- Maya Angelou**_

* * *

Hermione was more anxious that she could remember feeling about something other than her own health in years. She had put on her nicest dress, and even ventured to put on makeup. Severus was still out in the fields, working harvest, and she was in the kitchen making a supper that she hoped would soften him up for the conversation she wanted to have. They had avoided actually discussing their relationship for some time, but she didn't want to do it anymore. She was just afraid of what she was going to hear when she finally gathered the courage to ask.

She set the table for two, and went as far as to put a candle between the plates. She thought a table cloth might be a bit too much for him, so she avoided that all together. She wanted a romantic but relaxed environment when he arrived, but her nerves weren't really helping the situation.

She was just plating the food with a shaking hand when the front door opened and revealed a very sweaty Severus who was pulling his soaked shirt off as he walked in. She became completely distracted and nearly dropped a spoon full of spaghetti noodles on the floor while she stared at his muscular chest. About the time she began licking her suddenly dry lips he seemed to realize he had an audience and he met her eyes.

"Oh, you made dinner," he said in surprise. "Let me just take a quick shower, and I'll join you."

She just nodded dumbly as he walked away. For a moment she stared after him, wondering if he had thought the house would be empty or if he hadn't cared if she saw him without his shirt on. She decided it must have been the former with a shake of the head and went back to serving up dinner. She could see the shower running in the bathroom, but she tried not to think about him without his clothes on. That was not going to help her focus at all. She sat down at the table and hummed to herself while she waited for him to come into the kitchen.

His shower was quick, and soon he joined her in the kitchen. For a brief moment she thought he might actually be trying to torture her. He was wearing his white shirt, only buttoned half way, and his hair was dripping in a very appealing way. It made clear thought for a delicate conversation a bit difficult, but she drew a deep breath and gathered her courage.

"This looks very good," he said as he reached for a bit of garlic bread in the basket at the center of the table. "I didn't actually think that you cooked."

"I actually enjoy cooking," Hermione stammered, blushing when she saw his brows contort in confusion at her over excited answer. "When the act of standing at the stove doesn't feel like the most exhausting experience in the world of course."

"Well, it appears that you are proficient at it," he laughed when he finished chewing his bite of bread. "Was there a special reason for the meal? Or did you just feel like cooking tonight?"

"I uh… wanted to talk to you," she said. "And my mother always said that a man's heart lives in his stomach."

She could tell she had his undivided attention now. He had ceased eating his meal and fixed her with a very intent gaze.

"What did you want to talk to me about?" he asked calmly.

"Us," she whispered.

She saw just the tiniest flicker of something on his face before it turned into the mask she'd seen for years as his student. That couldn't be a good sign could it? Was it that he didn't want to talk in general, or that he had been putting off the conversation because it was going to be a negative one?

"We don't have to if you don't want to," she said in a rush offering my hands up in surrender when his face remained impassive. "I just thought we needed to discuss… I mean we haven't really talked about it… I just… never mind. Forget I said anything. Just enjoy your dinner."

She turned her attention to her plate trying desperately not to notice the way her eyes were burning. She would not cry, he had seen her cry far too often as it were. She tried to just eat her spaghetti and not think at all.

"Ok, you want to talk about us," Severus said finally in an even voice. "Perhaps that is a good idea. We haven't exactly spoken about what this is between us."

Hermione turned her gaze back to him, and she opened her mouth, but found she could not make speech anymore. She was too terrified of what he would say.

"Would you agree that we are involved in a relationship," he asked as if we were in a potions lesson.

She nodded.

"And is that something that you wish to continue with?" he asked without any indication of how he felt on the matter.

She was terrified to put herself out there when she didn't know what he wanted, but she drew on all the Gryffindor courage she had in her and nodded her head once more. He released a great rush of air from his mouth then, and she braced myself for the annoyed dismissal that was to come.

"You have a hell of a way of making a man nervous Hermione," he said finally and she felt her own brow contorting in confusion now. "I thought you were ending this."

"What?" she gasped. "N-no. I want more, but I didn't know what you wanted."

"I want everything," he stated plainly, and the guarded look slipped from his face revealing more emotion than she had ever seen in his face.

His eyes were probing hers, and they were full of such… love that it floored her. Hermione felt as if the world stopped spinning for a moment before continuing in the other direction. She felt more complete sitting there at the table, not even touching him, than she had ever felt while married to Ron.

"So you don't want me to move out now that I am better," she finally asked with a chuckle.

"I do want you to move out of that room actually," he admitted. "But I won't rush you to move into the bedroom with me. If you aren't ready."

"Do I get to see you with your shirt off more often if I do?" she asked cheekily.

It was his turn to nod.

"Well, I'll move in right now then," she chirped jumping up from the table.

She went to go grab some of her things to put in his room, but he caught her on her way across the kitchen and pulled her into his lap. He gave her a look full of love as he combed his fingers into her hair and gently pulled her face up to meet his. It wasn't the first time they had kissed, but there was something different about this kiss. It was possessive, and romantic, and just so full of emotion. Hermione threw herself into the kiss, wrapping her arms around his neck and pressing her body to his.

"Take me to bed," she whispered against his lips.

He groaned as he claimed her again, shifting her so she could wrap her legs around his waist while he walked with her. It only seemed to take them a second to arrive in his bedroom, and though she had never been in there before, she found that the feeling of his bed beneath her back felt like home.

* * *

"Can I paint you?" Hermione asked, curling around the pillow that had been beneath her head just moments ago.

"I can't really say no to you," he said sleepily, not even bothering to lift his head up from where it lay on the mattress. "Can it wait until I have slept?"

"You can sleep while I paint if you like," she laughed. "I want to paint you like this. With only a sheet covering you, and your body still flushed from exertion. You look like a god right now, and I'd like to immortalize it."

"Flattery will get you everywhere," he chuckled before turning hungry eyes on her. "You may paint me if you wish, but I'd like to pain you in return."

"You paint?" she asked, her brow creeping up toward her hair.

"Not on canvas," Severus said waggling his brows at her.

"Oh," she laughed.

"Well have you seen how you look wearing only my pillow as an ensemble?" he said, the hunger appearing in his voice as well. "Your skin seems to go on for miles, and you have curves again. Rather delicious curves. I would like to paint a goddess, and look there is one sitting in my bed."

"You're right, flattery will get you everywhere," Hermione laughed heartily. "Let me go get my paints."

* * *

"I'm going to remind you of this ruined set of sheets the next time you want to paint in our bedroom," Severus said as he dressed for work.

"Should I remind you who it was who painted on a canvas and who it was who didn't?" Hermione asked as she tied the side of her wrap dress closed.

"Point taken," he nodded. "Do you want to take the truck today? Town isn't that far, but I still don't like the idea of you walking that far."

"That's probably a good idea," Hermione agreed, extending her hand to take the proffered keys. "Do you want anything from the market?"

"Get whatever you like," he said. "I'm just grateful to be saved the trip into town."

"Anything for you," she said with a smile before planting a kiss on his cheek. "I'll see you when you have finished in the fields.

Hermione had a full day planned. She was going to go to the market of course, but she also wanted to stop by the book store, and go see all of her friends. She also needed to meet with the head of the commune and inform him that she was officially leaving the program now that she was in remission. She had no intention of actually giving up art, but she was preparing to dedicate most of her waking hours to pursuits of a scientific endeavor, and that would keep her away from her painting. Not to mention that working on magical experiments didn't really pair well with spending copious amount of time with muggles.

She drove into town, enjoying the rumbling of the old truck, and trying to decide which errand she should attend to first. Any plans for the day quickly flew out of the window when she drove through the town center and she saw a familiar head of messy black hair peaking out from behind a map, and a woman who could be none other than Ginny Weasley looking around pointing in the direction of the art gallery in exasperation. Hermione screeched to a stop, drawing everyone's attention to the truck and because of that to her. She hadn't expected her letter to have such an immediate impact, and now that she was facing the pair of them in the middle of Abbeville she had no idea what she was going to do.

"Hermione," she heard Harry call as he dropped the map onto the ground and promptly forgot about it.

She turned the truck off and drew a deep breath into her chest when the two of them started running toward her. Apparently there was no time like the present, so she attempted to gather her wits and climbed out of the truck allowing the slam of the closing door to clear her sense.


	15. Chapter 15

"_**You may be deceived if you trust too much, but you will live in torment if you do not trust enough". -Frank Crane**_

* * *

"This isn't a letter," she stammered as the two of them rushed toward her.

"A letter," Ginny cried, reaching her first and throwing her arms around Hermione. "Letters are for trivial news, not things of life and death."

"You should have told us," Harry murmured as he wrapped his arms around his wife and one of his oldest friends. "You shouldn't have had to face this alone."

"I wasn't alone," Hermione manages to squeeze out even though tears are beginning to choke her. "Not really."

"You barely know the friends you've made here," Ginny said as she threading her fingers into Hermione's cropped hair. "We should have been here for you. We've been your friends and family for more than a decade."

"I-I couldn't," she said, giving up the fight against her tears and letting them fall. "Everything was just so…"

"I know," Harry said softly as he squeezed the two most important women in his life more tightly. "I know."

"Let me take you both to lunch," Hermione said, brushing her tears away quickly. "We have so much catching up to do."

"I suppose it would be easier for you to find anything around here," Ginny chuckled as she released her. "We were completely turned about. Harry here, refused to ask for directions of course."

"We don't even know anyone here," Harry pointed in exasperation. "What was I supposed to say. Oh hey, I just apparated in, but I wasn't focused enough so I didn't end up on the artists commune, could you just point me in the right direction."

"Probably just asking where the commune is would have done fine," Hermione laughed as she started to lead them toward the diner she and her former housemates used to eat at regularly. "However it wouldn't have done you much good. I moved off the commune when it got bad."

"Where did you move too?" Ginny said, her brow quirking.

"Perhaps over lunch?" Hermione hesitated, realizing that she was in a bind now.

"Sure," Ginny nodded, just following where Hermione went without question.

"Hermione, you look really good," Harry said with a slight blush in his cheeks. "I was expecting something pretty awful to be honest."

"I looked pretty bad for a while," Hermione shrugged. "but my hair is growing back, and I've put on some weight again, and my skin isn't chalky white anymore."

"It's something more than that though," Ginny said, walking sideways so she could look more closely. "Your eyes have a glimmer again. I can't remember the last time I saw that."

"I'm happy," Hermione offered lightly, an unbidden smile creeping onto her face once more.

They sat down at the little picnic table that she always sat at, and for a moment conversation subsided as they placed their orders with the waitress who had appeared almost immediately upon their arrival. Hermione took a moment to simply enjoy watching the pair of them sitting across the table from her while they ordered. She had thought that she wasn't ready to see them, but now that they were here she was just so happy about it, she felt like she might be glowing.

"So where are you living now," Ginny pushed once the waitress had delivered their drinks and disappeared once more.

"I'm uh… involved with someone," Hermione said quietly, tensing in anticipation of a bad reaction. "I've been staying with him since about the time the treatments started making me really ill. We weren't together at first though… That's more of a recent thing, but anyway. I'm staying with him, outside of town."

"So he takes care of you" Ginny said, a smile creeping onto her features.

"He does," Hermione agreed immediately. "Wait, you aren't upset with me?"

"I'd be upset with you if you were planning to go back to Ron," Ginny said bluntly. "I want you to be with someone who will treat you right, who will take care of you. Frankly you don't always do a good job of that yourself."

"Oh I've missed you," Hermione chuckled.

"So who is he?" Harry asked when they had all stopped laughing.

"Ah well…" Hermione hesitated once more. "I've not actually obtained his permission to tell you that. He's very private, and I was expecting more time to warm him up to the idea."

"He doesn't have to know you've told us," Ginny whispered conspiratorially. "It's not as if we are going to sneak up on him and initiate an inquisition."

"I'm afraid if I tell you, you'll get so caught up in who he is that you'll forget you even said that," Hermione said before biting her lip.

"Oh now you have to tell us," Harry pushed.

"Do you promise to remain calm?" Hermione asked, feeling truly tortured.

"Of course," Ginny assure her. "Now will you just tell us already?"

"It's Severus," Hermione whispered.

There was a pause where the two of them shared a look.

"Severus Snape?" Harry questioned as, one of his brows rising up steadily toward his hairline.

Hermione nodded, and the couple shared another concerned look.

"Hermione, are you feeling alright," Ginny asked very quietly. "The medicine they gave you doesn't make you feel strangely?"

"No of course not," Hermione said in confusion. "Why do you ask?"

"Well it's just…" Harry said awkwardly. "Severus Snape is dead Hermione. You know that."

"Oh no, he isn't," Hermione said a smile sneaking onto her face on its own accord. "You remember how I hesitated to follow you when we left him after the snake attack? It was because I was putting dittany on his wound."

Harry just stared, and she got the distinct impression that he didn't believe her.

"I returned after the battle had ended, and I gave him a few more potions," Hermione continued. "He must have taken them, and escaped because his body was gone when the aurors were sent to collect it. He fled the country, and apparently ended up here."

"I don't think that really happened Hermione," Ginny said quietly. "I don't remember you leaving after the battle, and he really is dead. I think maybe you've been hallucinating."

"All my hallucinations were always of Ronald," Hermione snapped before returning to a cool demeanor. "Speaking of him, if you do not believe I went to Severus after the battle, ask him about it. We fought all the way there, and he is the reason that I only threw the potions into the shack, rather than administering them myself."

Harry stared at her with a shocked face, and she knew he was beginning to believe her. His eyes seemed to mist up, and he wrapped her arm tightly around his wife.

"He's alive?" Harry whispered. "He survived?"

Hermione nodded.

"I need to see him," Harry gushed. "I need to thank him… to, to ask him about my mother. Can you take me to him?"

"You promised you'd keep your distance," Hermione pointed out softly. "He's a very private man."

Their food arrived then, and the conversation temporarily halted while they took their plates and thanked the waitress. They waited patiently for her to walk away and tense silence forming between them. Hermione breathed a sigh of relief when she saw a resigned look appear on her friend's face.

"Okay, okay, I can wait," He said finally. "Will you ask him though? If I can speak to him."

"I will," she nodded.

The three of them began to catch up, and to really talk about the illness that had nearly killed Hermione. There were laughs and tears and hugs but it was a proper reunion. They stayed at the restaurant for hours and during that time Hermione told them everything about her time in France. They in turn told her everything that had happened since she had left England. She was surprisingly untroubled to learn that Ron had finished out his sentence in Azkaban and was now living at the Burrow with his parents while attending a mandatory anger management classes. What surprised her more was how painful it was to discover that Ginny was pregnant. She held her ground and smiled and agreed that James would be a great name for their incoming first born, but inside it felt as if she were melting. She eventually couldn't take it anymore, and politely parted ways with them under the excuse of errands that needed o be finished.

* * *

Somehow she had managed to get through her meeting with the head of the commune without losing her grip on her emotions as well as picking up a week's supply of groceries. It wasn't until she was attempting to maneuver the beast of a truck Severus had leant her, that she really started to lose her grip. She drove halfway to the farm house before her tears had grown so thick she could no longer see the road. She had to pull off the side of the road, and just hold onto the steering wheel for dear life while she rode out the worst of it.

When the tears had slowed to a steady trickle and she could see the road clearly once more she began o drive once more. She parked the truck outside the house and looked around. The sun was low enough in the sky that Severus may have returned home from the fields. She took the time to wipe away her tears, and to dry her nose. She still looked a bit red in the face, but that could pass for a blush, she was hoping he wouldn't notice that her eyes were red. She pulled the canvas bags from the seat and slid out of the cab.

All the time and focus take to make herself presentable, and to walk with poise as if she did not have any troubles turned out to be entirely pointless. The house was deserted when she entered it so she allowed her shoulders to slump and she shuffled off to the kitchen still wallowing in her depression. She decided to start preparing a meal to keep herself from completely falling apart once more.

The distraction kept full out sobs at bay, but the tears continued to run down her face. She was crying quietly to herself as she chopped and onion when Severus walked tiredly into the house. She straightened her back, and attempted to will her tears to stop but she didn't dare reach up to wipe them away and thus draw his attention to them.

"Dinner two nights in a row?" she heard him drawl from the doorway. "You are going to spoil me."

"Perhaps you could use a bit of spoiling," she said trying to be witty, and cringing when she heard just how hoarse her voice sounded, though she prayed he hadn't noticed.

"Are you unwell?" he asked immediately, and she felt the breeze as he swept toward her.

His hand reached around from behind her to feel her forehead, and she hoped nothing would seem out of the ordinary to him. She had no such luck however. His hand was on her forehead, but his wrist dipped low enough that it touched her we cheek, and she found herself being automatically being spun in his arms so her could investigate her face.

"What has upset you?" he asked firmly, his brow knitting together.

"I'm chopping onions," Hermione said shiftily, hoping he wouldn't push too hard.

"Try again," he said softly, his voice barely betraying his disappointment. "You weren't very convincing with that one."

"Harry and Ginny showed up in town today," she sighed letting her eyes flutter closed against the threat of new tears.

"They did something to upset you?" he growled angrily, his hands reaching out gently to wipe the tears from her cheeks.

"No, no! They were perfectly lovely," Hermione said in a rush before any of the fight left went out of her and she decided to just tell him everything. "It's just that… Ginny is pregnant. She's four months along, and she's so happy. I should be so happy for her, but I just… can't."

Severus didn't seem to know what to say, so he just continued to brush her cheeks with his thumbs and wait patiently for her to continue speaking.

"I never thought that I wanted children. I certainly didn't want them with Ron," Hermione went on, he tears flowing without restraint now. "But then I see Ginny so happy and pregnant and I want that too. I suddenly want it so badly, and it has never been more impossible."

Severus pulled her against his chest and held her there while he rubbed her back. She cried wretchedly into his shirt, and he kept holding her. She wished she could stop crying and let it go and he wished for some way to fix this for her. Dinner lay forgotten on the counter as the two of them clung to one another.

* * *

"Shh, shh, shh," Severus crooned as he attempted to lie an exhausted Hermione on the bed, but she began to stir from the sleep she had fallen into when she had cried herself out in his lap. "Go back to sleep."

"I have to tell you something," Hermione groaned tiredly, grabbing his hand and pulling him toward her as he tried to tuck the blankets around her.

"It can wait until morning," he whispered back, sliding into bed beside her and hoping that his body spooning hers would convince her to go to sleep. "It's late, and we're both tired."

"But you might want me to sleep in the other room once you've heard," Hermione grumbled, starting to sound more awake than she had been.

"Alright then," he said, only humoring her, as he settled further into the bed and wrapped swaddled the blanket around her, prepared to wait her out and go take his shower once she had succumbed to sleep. "Go on."

"I told them you're alive," Hermione confessed quickly. "And that we're together."

"Okay," he said, though he felt a tiny ripple of irritation that his freedom was not quite as vast as it had been.

"How mad are you?" Hermione whispered.

"I'm not," he told her, and it wasn't a lie. "I am not over joyed, but I am not angry. I do hope they will keep that fact to themselves."

"Of course they will," Hermione assured him quickly. "I had to fight Harry off about immediately wanting to come see you, but I have no worries about them keeping it secret if that's what you want."

"Then there is no reason to get worked up," Severus shushed while wondering if Potter was stupid enough to confront him about the memories he had shared with him. "Let's go to sleep now."

Hermione nodded her head, and Severus began to run his fingers lightly up and down her arm in an effort to lull her back into the tired state she had been in. He listened to her breathing as it slowly evened out into the sounds of sleep once more. He listened for a while longer, but when the tiny little murmurs that meant she was dreaming started he slipped out of bed to go get that shower. He couldn't help but chuckle lightly to himself when he realized that he shouldn't know the sound of her dreaming already when it was only her second night in his bed. Would she be upset with him if she knew that he had watched her sleep on more than one occasion?


	16. Chapter 16

"**The brick walls are there for a reason. The brick walls are not there to keep us out. The brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something. Because the brick walls are there to stop the people who don't want it badly enough. They're there to stop the other people."**

― **Randy Pausch**

* * *

Hermione screamed in frustration, throwing the letter she had been reading into the trash, and storming into their bedroom. She flopped down on the bed where Severus was sprawled out reading a book on potion making. He was jostled by her but her did not allow it to bother him, he just readjusted his position when she burrowed into his side and buried her head in the sheets.

"I take it the third letter was just as disheartening as the first two?" he asked without looking up from his book.

"They are absolutely refusing to fund any sort of research," Hermione groused. "It doesn't matter if I suggest training healers on administering the muggle healing process, or suggest finding a magical equivalent for chemo therapy, or even suggest coming up with a strictly magical cure, they just won't approve it. It's like cancer doesn't matter since it will apparently only ever effect muggleborns."

"Have you raised that concern in your petitions?" Severus asked somewhat distractedly.

"No," Hermione said quickly. "I didn't want anything to come off as if I were suggesting they were pureblood supremacists or death eater sympathizers or anything like that."

Severus looked up from his book with a raised eyebrow. It seemed she had finally gotten his full attention. He put his thumb under the line had been reading and then he completely disregarded the book to focus on her.

"Do you think that's what it is?" he asked.

"No, I think that sounds extreme," Hermione answered quickly. "And even if it is something like that, I don't know that it's completely intellectual. I think it's really just a massive oversight, and some hw I am not making a good enough point."

"Curing cancer should be a point on its own," Severus said with a tilt of the head.

"But the word cancer just doesn't share the same weight in the wizarding world as it does in the muggle world," Hermione pointed out. "These people rarely see people they know or care about suffering from it."

"Maybe they need to," Severus said thoughtfully. "Maybe if they saw someone that they all felt a sense of connection to suffering from it, their opinions would change."

"Are you suggesting we try to give someone cancer," Hermione gasped.

"No," Severus said with a chuckle at where her mind had gone. "I'm suggesting that you share your story with the wizarding world. As a member of the Golden Trio, I think it will have an effect on them."

"I'd never really thought of sharing any of that," Hermione mused. "I suppose it makes sense though. My experience is why I feel so motivated to find a better way. Maybe it could motivate other people."

* * *

Harvest had finally ended, and Severus was taking a week off like all of the other workers on the farm. He hardly had any actual vacation time left, having used it all during Hermione's illness, but there was not any work to be done on the farm so they were all gifted with time off. So he was able to stay at home with Hermione, who was now able to enjoy more time in the sun without threat of painful sunburn, so they spent their days lazing about the yard talking and reading.

Upon Hermione's suggestion he had installed a hammock between the two trees closest to the house. He had thought the idea silly, but now that he had spent time laying in it with Hermione he could see the uses. Hermione was tucked into his side napping while he continued to read.

"You've got to tell me what you're working on," she said, startling him with the broken silence. "You've read about the body regeneration potion that a certain dark wizard used, you've read about the mandrake potion you used to revive all of us that had been petrified in my second year, and now you're reading about skele gro. I cannot figure out the connection between any of them."

"Who says I'm working on anything," he said guardedly closing the book to give her his full attention.

"You've got the focused look that Harry and Ronald…" she stopped, caught up on the fact that it was the first pleasant memory of her ex-husband in years. "What I mean is, I recognize the look of someone researching something for a project. I've worn it plenty of times myself."

"If I tell you, do you promise not to get excited or overly attached to a project that may not be possible?" he asked, instinctively pulling her tighter into his side and beginning to rock them gently in the hammock.

"Sure Severus," Hermione smiled, too carefree to have any idea what he was trying to do.

"I am trying to develop a potion for regenerating organs," he said quietly, and when her brow crinkled he realized he was going to have be a bit more blunt. "A potion that could regrow reproductive organs."

"Oh," she gasped before nestling in closer to him and wrapping her arm tightly around him. "I love you Severus."

"I love you as well," he said gruffly, dropping the book lightly into the grass she he could wrap both arms around her and hold her as tightly as he dared. "And I want to give you the world."

"But do you want a baby?" Hermione whispered into the folds of his shirt.

"If it were part you?" he said back just as quietly. "I told you once already Hermione, I want everything."

* * *

"Are you entirely rational at the moment?" Severus asked her when she had seated herself at the dinner table across from him. "I seem to recall Rita Skeeter writing some fairly scathing articles about you and your friends in the past."

"Things are a little different between her and I now," Hermione chuckled over the rim of her glass. "I have a certain amount of knowledge on her that keeps her from publicly tarnishing my name."

"You've got my attention," he prodded as he began serving stir-fry onto both of their plates.

"Cone of silence right?" she asked, gesturing in an arch over her head, waiting for him to nod and smirk before she continued. "Rita Skeeter is an unregistered animagus. Very secretive that one, and she'd absolutely hate it if I were to accidentally mention that to someone at the ministry."

"So what you're saying is that you're in complete control of what will actually run in the paper?" Severus asked when he set the spatula back into the dish between them.

"Yes exactly," Hermione chuckled. "So I am going to apparate into Calais tomorrow to do the interview. I didn't want her to actually know where I live. She does sometimes have trouble avoiding the temptation to investigate intriguing figures, and the last thing I want is for her to stumble upon a living breathing Severus Snape."

"I appreciate that," Severus smiled. "Should I expect you to be home when I come home from work, or do you expect to be home later in the evening."

"I won't be meeting with her until late afternoon, so I expect it to be a little late by the time I get back," She shrugged. "I'll be back long before bed time though."

Severus smirked at that before digging into dinner. The two of them chatted amicably while they enjoyed the meal. Severus thought about mentioning that he was going to make his first stab at brewing the potion that might allow her to have children once more, but he hesitated in telling her. He didn't want to get her excited if it didn't work, and he certainly didn't want her to have that weighing on her mind when she was being interviewed by a nuisance such as Skeeter.

* * *

Hermione returned from her interview feeling drained and somewhat hunted to find Severus having an absolute fit in the room that had once been her bedroom and had now become his potions lab. She was torn between the melted cauldron on the work bench and the man who was furiously tossing crumpled bits of parchment into the waste basket while cursing to himself.

"Severus, I didn't think you had it in you to melt a cauldron," she said with a smirk.

"The blasted potion exploded," he raged, clearly not amused with her joke. "I managed to keep from setting the house on fire, but I can't actually figure out what went wrong. None of those ingredients should have reacted with one another like that."

"What were you brewing?" Hermione asked, slipping into academic mode.

"I haven't named it yet," he snarled, before turning to look at her.

The anger blanched out of his face as he looked at her, until slowly a tiny smile crept onto his face.

"You look beautiful today," he said giving her a once over. "Have you worn that dress before?"

"No, I bought it today in Calais," she said looking down at the simple black sack dress she was wearing. "I showed up there in jeans and a jumper, but then I got really nervous about how I looked. And when I noticed that there was paint on my jeans I started thinking that she might somehow know about the artists here, and then she might somehow follow me home. So I bought a dress. Does it look okay?"

"It looks wonderful," he said, abandoning the site of his tantrum and coming around the work bench to pull her into his embrace. "How did the interview go?"

"I forgot how aggressive she can be," Hermione sighed as she slumped further into his embrace. "But I think it went well. The story will be specific. She won't mention Ronald, or where I fled to, and nothing to do with you. All of those things are still secret. It went well."

"I'm glad," Severus said with a smile. "I would have a hard time seducing my make-believe wife if she had a bad day."

Hermione's response was temporarily cut off when he claimed her lips in a searing kiss that made her toes tingle.

"What would you say if I didn't want it to be pretend anymore," she whispered against his lips.

"Would you really want that?" he asked, hope creeping into his voice. "Would you want to marry me?"

She nodded eagerly as she claimed his lips as her own. She tried to wrap her body as tightly around his as she could. He kissed her back just as eagerly, pulling her up into his arms as had quickly become customary between the two of them, and heading in the direction of their bedroom.

* * *

"I got it!" Hermione cheered, running in from the mail box with her letter held above her head in triumph. "I've got the grant to pay for researching the cure for cancer!"

Severus was once more in his lab brewing away, but he put the potion on stasis and turned to greet her with a smile.

"I told you when I saw the article in the paper that the letter would come soon," Severus said. "Skeeter couldn't have picked a better title to drive it home to the ministry."

"I still can't believe she called me the face of cancer," Hermione chuckled. "I can't wait to get started on this! I have so many ideas. I was even thinking about it in the shower this morning and something rather obvious occurred to me. Why don't wizards get cancer?"

"I honestly have no idea," Severus admitted with a frown.

"I don't think anyone does, that's the point," Hermione said as she joined him at the table and peered into his cauldron. "I think the answer to why muggleborns get cancer could be found in why purebloods don't. Hey, what's in this?"

"There are a lot of things in there," Severus chuckled. "Puffer fish, scarab beetles, powdered yew, much more. The problem is what isn't in there."

"Well what's missing?" Hermione asked, watching the light red potion bubble quietly.

"I don't know," he groaned. "I need to do more research. According to my calculations it should be a light gold color at this stage. So clearly I have missed an ingredient. I need more books."

"Do you want me to go into a wizarding bookstore with you?" Hermione asked, turning her attention back to him.

"No, I don't actually know which books it is I need yet," Severus said as he wrapped his arms around her, tucking her head beneath his chin. "I think I am going to have to go myself."

"Severus," Hermione gasped.

"Shhh, I know," he said softly. "It would be hard for you to legally marry a dead man anyway. It's about time I let people know that I'm alive."

"You don't have to do that for me,' Hermione assured him.

"I know that," he said quietly. "I'm ready to do this."

"I'm really glad that you want to do this. Of course that means Harry is going to start hounding me even more to meet with you," she said, pulling away so she could see his face, and catching sight of the cauldron. "Uh, your potion is smoking now."

"Bollux," he snapped, releasing her so he could return his attention to the potion before it could explode again.


	17. Chapter 17

"**One ought to hold on to one's heart; for if one lets it go, one soon loses control of the head too."**

― **Friedrich Nietzsche**

* * *

Severus had grown accustomed to wearing his farming clothes once more now that he no longer wore his frock coat to make Hermione comfortable. He was even growing to suspect that she preferred him out of his old black clothing, so pulling it out of the closet to wear for this trip into wizarding London chaffed a bit. He did it however, both because he really did need those books to help Hermione, and because he wanted to make an honest woman out of her.

"I'd forgotten how sever you could look while wearing those clothes and scowling," Hermione said from where she sat perched on the edge of the bed. "I can almost remember how scary you were in school."

"Only almost," he said with a quirked brow, spinning toward her so his cloak swirled dramatically around him.

"Only almost," Hermione laughed reaching out to catch the still fluttering fabric and run it between her fingers. "Ha, I always suspected charm work."

"Of course," he chuckled snatching her hand away from his cloak and bringing up to his mouth so he could kiss her fingers. "You don't like cloaks just float about like that on their own do you?"

"Well it's very impressive," Hermione said somberly as she ran her thumb over his lips. "Are you sure that you don't want me to come with you?"

"No," he sighed. "I imagine this is going to be a circus, and I'd rather spare you the theatrics."

"You're worrying too much," Hermione sighed, flopping back on the bed and stretching out. "I already told you, you're a hero back there. You look like you're expecting to be arrested, when it more likely that some witch is going to attempt to kiss you."

"I have no intention of kissing other witches," he chuckled, sweeping down to steal one last kiss before his departure. "I intended to be home before dinner."

His strode out into the living room where there was a little more open space to move about. He focused his mind entirely on the apparition spot in the shadow of the Leaky Cauldron, and then he turned to the left pulling himself into the constricting void of darkness leaving their living room behind. There was a crack and when he opened his eyes he was standing beside the somewhat rundown building that was the symbol of the wizarding world in England.

He drew a deep breath, and walked out of the shadow and around to the front of the building. He pushed open the door, striding confidently into the gloomy pub. He actually heard the second that someone spotted him. There was a gasp, and then all of the chatter in the room slowly died away as the eyes of all the witches and wizards present turned to stare blankly at him. He assumed his famous air of indifference and strode up to the bar where Tom had frozen in the middle of wiping a glass with a dirty rag.

"Why Tom, you look as if you've seen a ghost," Severus said with a smirk. "Do you suppose you might get over your shock and tell me whether Florish and Blotts is still intact after all these years?"

"You're alive," Tom stammered.

"Well spotted," Severus snarked. "Should I assume that you don't know the answer to my question?"

"No, they're open," the bar tender said in a rush. "But you… everyone said you were dead."

"Yes, well the ministry always did had a problem checking their facts didn't they?" Severus drawled, loud enough for the room at large to hear. "You may have noticed they never collected a body from my supposed place of death."

Ah, and there is was, in the silence after his last proclamation he heard the sound of a quill scratching across a bit of parchment. He had been banking on someone working for the prophet being present in the pub, and he was rather certain a reporter had just taken notes on his rather rude return to the wizarding world.

"Well, I can see the atmosphere is a little slow in here today," Severus bit out as he turned away from the bar. "Perhaps another time."

Severus swept out of the pub while everyone was still gawking and attempted to stifle his smirk. With a few quick taps of his wand he was once again present on the street of Diagon Alley. There were small groups of people out shopping, but they scattered to the edges of the street to make a path for him when they saw him. He was actually starting to wonder if Hermione had been right about his hero status when he saw the fawning way some of the women were looking at him, but he just shot the all his patented glower and continued on his way.

The staff of Florish and Blotts was just as unobservant as they had been five years ago, so he was able to sweep into the stacks without being disturbed by anyone else shocked by his return from the dead. He went immediately to the medicinal books, swiftly running through the titles until he found several books that looked promising.

He remained un-accosted until he swept into the potions section and found himself face to face with Rita Skeeter and her blasted photographer. He flinched backward when the flash blinded him, but the he regained his wits and turned a fierce glare on her.

"Ah ah, be very careful how you use that picture Ms. Skeeter," he said silkily, reaching out to tap the edge of her ugly glasses. "I seem to remember seeing a beetle with markings just like these, and it would be a real shame if I were to bring that up with the ministry."

It was just a guess of course, Hermione had never described the beetle to him, and he had never seen her. It seemed however that he had hit the mark when her face contorted in fear.

"Should I refrain from running an article at all," she asked quietly, angling her body away from her photographer.

"Feel free to run it," he said dismissively. "Just refrain from mentioning what I was doing here in town, and opening any speculation as to where I reside."

She nodded her head agreeably, though her face was full of barely concealed rage. She snapped her fingers as she swept away, and her photographer followed like a good little puppy. Severus swallowed a chuckle, and quickly gathered the books he needed from the potions section. He needed to pay for his books and get out of here, before he ran into anyone else unpleasant.

It appeared that his luck had run out however. When he approached the counter to pay for his purchases he was confronted with the sight of a nervous Harry Potter loitering next to the shop owner. He rolled his eyes and strode up to the counter with a growing sense of annoyance.

"How on God's green earth did you hear that I was here already?" he snapped at the black haired man as he handed his books over to the quiet blonde shop girl.

"I work in the aurors office," Harry said in a nervous voice. "Which is where the first calls go when a scared witch is certain she saw an inferius walk into the Leaky Cauldron."

"Oh for the love of—"

"I know, it's ridiculous," Harry said, waving his hands in supplication. "Anyway the report came across my desk, and I figured I wouldn't get a better opportunity to talk to you."

"You aren't really going to make this a soppy moment are you?" Severus growled as he handed over the required cash to the shop girl. "You realize that I never would have given you those memories if I thought I were going to survive, not to mention if I thought you were going to share them with people."

"I didn't!" Harry rushed. "Well not most of them. I shared the important bits at your trail to clear your name, but no one know about the other stuff… well besides Ginny."

"That still doesn't change anything," he snarked. "Those memories do not make us bosom buddies."

"I know that," Harry assured him quickly. "But I have so many questions for you. Not to mention questions about Hermione and everything that happened there. Questions that a friend would be able to answer."

"We are not friends Potter," he spat.

"We could be," Harry went on, unperturbed by Severus's vitriol. "If you take the time to realize I am not my father… I think we could be friends."

"Enough," Severus growled, snatching the books he now owned out of the nervous shop girl's hands. "Small doses Potter, small doses."

He swept out of the shop before he could say anything else to him. He imagined he'd be getting a lecture from Hermione about this later, but he really wasn't ready to try and form a relationship that wasn't rooted firmly in hate with Harry Bloody Potter just yet. He needed to make a quick stop to pick up a few things from his vault in Gringotts and then he would go face the music with Hermione.

* * *

"Just hold still for a second," he said quietly as he cast a strong cooling charm on her hand to numb her fingers.

She didn't even flinch when he punctured her finger with a lancet and collected several drops of her blood in a small glass vial.

"You're adorable you know that?" Hermione said as he quickly sealed the wound on her finger. "I've lost track of how many times I've had my blood drawn. A little prick isn't a big deal."

"Yes, well we were doing this without a port," he said distractedly as he turned back to the potion.

He tipped the blood into the potion, and watched it sink through the somewhat clear potion to the bottom, slowly dissolving into the potion. He took the glass stirring rod in hand and he began to stir it. Hermione watched him mouthing the numbers to himself as he counted his rotations. The potion gradually shifted from translucent to opaque and took on a pink hue that reminded her of her old baby blanket. Her thoughts started to wander to the other things she had boxed up from her parent's old house, and she quickly stamped those thoughts out before they could upset her.

"Damn it," Severus growled, stirring the potion in the other direction to no effect. "Damn it all to hell."

"What is it Severus?" Hermione asked when he jerked the stirring rod out of the potion and tossed it onto the floor shattering it.

"I've still missed something," he groaned reaching for his notes again. "It should be such a light shade of pink that it's almost white. I'm close, it's pink at least, but I'm still missing something."

"I have a book that might help," Hermione chirped, hurrying out of the room to go grab the book she had been reading just that morning.

Severus was glowering at a now empty cauldron when she returned with the thick tome in hand. She set it down on the table, drawing him out of his pout immediately. He stared down at the book before looking back up at her with a smirk.

"_The Real Magic of Healing_," he asked her with a quirked brow.

"Just read it smart ass," she chuckled. "There is a whole chapter on cross discipline healing."

"Come again?" he said as he opened the book to peruse the table of contents.

"I hit a road block converting the benefits of chemotherapy over to magical healing," Hermione explained. "And I realized with this book that it was because I was focusing on charm work, when what I really needed to consider was actually transfiguring the abnormal cells into normal ones."

"You're a genius," he said, reaching out to pull her too him, and kissing her forehead. "I know just the spell."

He jumped to work collecting his ingredients and preparing to brew again while Hermione looked on. She looked at his notes where he had listed ingredients and scratched some out, and wondered vaguely how awful this potion was going to taste. She had no qualms about if it was going to work, she trusted him to get it right, but the idea of drinking something foul didn't appeal to her. A person could only drink saline so many times before their taste buds became a bit sensitive. The combination of Chinese chomping cabbage, puffer-fish, powdered scarab beetles, billywig sting slime, powdered yew, shredded mandrake root, and her own blood did not sound particularly appetizing.

Severus was completely absorbed in his brewing, so she left him too it, and went to continue her own research in the kitchen. She had stumbled upon an excellent avenue into the possible cure to cancer when she realized that the cells within the blood of a pureblooded wizard appeared to actually vibrate more than those in her own blood. She was no researching vibrational medicine and how it could aid her in creating a specific bit of transfiguration that would allow her to cause non-pureblooded cells to vibrate on that same frequency and alter their shape accordingly.

* * *

"I can't give you a sleeping potion to go with it, because they would interact with one another," Severus explained as he handed her the glassful of milky white potion. "But it would behoove you to try and sleep through this."

"I take it, it will be unpleasant?" she asked as she took the glass in hand, and stared at the concoction that surprisingly appealing.

"The Vulnera Sanentur incantation will have added a certain calming quality to it," Severus said, tilting his head gently to the side. "But you will still be growing organs inside your body. It will likely feel similar to the effects of skele gro. So, yes, unpleasant."

And painful, Hermione thought to herself, remembering how Harry had described it, but she said nothing aloud. Instead she raised the glass slightly in a toast to him, and she tipped the glass back downing the potion as quickly as she could. It didn't taste awful per say, but it had a chalky aftertaste that she didn't relish having to taste again. Severus took the glass from her when she had finished, and urged her silently to lay down. She complied easily, feeling a gentle lethargy and serenity spread through her as she snuggled into the pillows. Severus draped the blanket over her, and settled into observe her for the evening.

He watched her carefully as she slept. Mostly she seemed peaceful, but he noted a light sheen of sweat on her forehead as the night went on. Her body seemed to be growing hotter as it worked to regenerate and entire organ system within her body, but she wasn't showing any signs of illness so he did not worry to strongly. They wouldn't know for sure until morning, but to him it looked like the potion was working. He probably should have mentioned that she should expect her first period in almost a year when she woke up in the morning, but it was too late now.

* * *

"What should I do?" Severus asked awkwardly, handing yet more tissues to a sobbing Hermione.

"Just go away," she balled flopping over and burying her face in the pillows. "This is so embarrassing."

"It's just hormones Hermione," he said as soothingly reaching out to rub her lower back soothingly.

"No, it's a mental illness," she snapped, slapping his hand away before burying into the pillows again. "My periods were never like this."

"You've just grown an entirely new uterus and set of ovaries," Severus pointed out delicately. "That means a rather large influx of hormones. It also means we were successful though."

"Oh I don't care about that right now!" she moaned pitifully, hauling herself up out of the bed. "I just want some chocolate."

Severus followed her as she stormed out of the room, stifling a chuckle. In any other woman he would find this behavior exceedingly annoying, but in Hermione he found it to be quite adorable.

"Where are you going?" he asked her. "We don't actually have any chocolate."

"I'm going to go take a hot bath," she called over shoulder as she scrubbed at her teary face. "Please go get some chocolate."

He shook his head and went in search of the keys to the truck. If she wanted chocolate, he'd get her chocolate, but he was definitely going to be brewing her a potion he hadn't brewed since he word for a school full of teenage witches. He chuckled every time he thought of the potion's name. _A Witch's Best Friend_, what a silly name for a potion. And yet, seeing the sobbing emotional mess Hermione had turned into within hours of waking up, he could see why a potion that relieved the side effects of menstruation might be called something as endearing as a best friend.

* * *

It took a week for Hermione to return to her normal self. She ran through every emotion Severus could possibly imagine in those seven days, but eventually she seemed to balance out. When she reached a point of equilibrium she became incredibly embarrassed and tried on multiple occasions to explain that she never behaved like that. He knew this of course, but he reassured her every time none the less.

"I don't know if I can ever say this enough, but thank you," she said as they lay together in the darkness of their bedroom. "You are an amazing man. I mean, what you've done is amazing. Thank you."

"I didn't realize you found my talents in the bedroom, quite so… amazing," he laughed darkly as he nuzzled her neck.

"Oh you know that wasn't what I was talking about," she laughed, pushing his sweaty hair back and away from both of them. "But yes, you are quite talented."

"Hmmm, thank you," he mused as he pulled the sheet up to cover both of their bodies. "I hope you still feel that way many, many years from now."

"I am certain I will," she whispered as she draped her arm over his chest and settled in to go to sleep. "It's why I've agreed to marry you."

"Yes marriage," he sighed. "Tell me again why we can't run off to city hall and be done with it."

"Because I want a magically ceremony," Hermione sighed tiredly. "And you know you do as well. So we need a witch and wizard to serve as witnesses."

"I suppose you'll want the Potters," he grumbled half on his way to sleep.

"Unless you'd prefer Molly and Arthur," she sighed quietly.

She did not expect a response when she heard his breathing even out and deepen. Hermione nestled closer to him, and allowed herself to drift as well. It did not take long for sleep to claim her.


	18. Chapter 18

"**I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where. I love you simply, without problems or pride: I love you in this way because I do not know any other way of loving but this, in which there is no I or you, so intimate that your hand upon my chest is my hand, so intimate that when I fall asleep your eyes close."**

― **Pablo Neruda**

* * *

The decided that they were ready, and so they made the arrangements with Harry and Ginny Potter as well as the celebrant that had apparently conducted the ceremony of Bill and Fleur Weasley. They wanted a small private affair so they did not invite any guests. There was something about getting married in a town where they had already told so many people that they were husband and wife that just felt wrong, so they chose not to have the ceremony in Abbeville. Hermione still wasn't quite ready to return to England, so they settled for a ceremony in the botanical garden just outside of Calais.

Severus found some middle ground where it came to attire, and wore a black suit, but it had no frock coat, and was broken up with a white shirt and silver vest. He had felt vastly overdressed until he had caught sight oh Hermione in her short white dress with shining beading along the top and dangerous looking silver heals. Her hair had grown out a bit, and she looked absolutely beautiful. He was reluctant to share her with anyone else, but it was somewhat required if they were going to be married. They apparated together, but were immediately pulled apart by the Potter's upon arrival.

"You can see the bride until the ceremony," Ginny chirped as she dragged Hermione away.

Hermione looked over her shoulder at Harry attempting to heard a severely annoyed Severus off to the other side of the garden. She barely noticed the way Ginny's hand lingered on her abdomen as she focused her attention on where they were moving and found that she was being taken to what appeared to be a small grotto.

"Hermione," Ginny said when they'd stopped moving. "Why didn't you tell us?"

"Tell you what?" Hermione asked as she straightened her dress where it had become twisted. "You know these shoes aren't made for being dragged around."

Hermione paid little attention to Ginny as she pulled her shoes off and started dusting the dirt that had been collected on them off. She couldn't help but admit that she was more comfortable with the shoes off, but they looked so cute with the dress. When she had begrudgingly put them back on she turned to face a concerned looking Ginny.

"You don't know do you?" Ginny asked.

"Obviously," Hermione said, well aware that she had picked up a certain individual's inclination for sarcasm.

"Come over here, and I'll show you," Ginny sighed, walking around to the back of the grotto where they were hidden from view.

Hermione followed her with a strange feeling in her gut. She stepped behind the grotto as well, subtly reached for where her wand was concealed on her thigh. War reflexes were telling her that she probably should have done some sort of test to be sure that this was actually Ginny.

"Oh come on," Ginny groaned as soon as she saw where Hermione's hand was. "I'm not luring you into a trap. I am however going to take out my wand, so if you could not freak out…"

"What is going on?" Hermione asked nervously.

"I want to cast a spell on you, to show you something that I assumed you knew already," Ginny sighed. "And I brought you back here, so no one else will see something that you might want to keep private until you've spoken to your fiancé."

"Okay, you've got my attention," Hermione relented.

"Merlin, I can't believe you thought I was going to hex you," Ginny grumbled before she took a deep breath and let it go.

Ginny moved her wand artfully over Hermione while her mouth worked almost soundlessly murmuring whatever spell she was casting. Hermione was surprised to still feel a bit of fear which she couldn't help but blame Ronald for. She pushed that from her mind and focused on the tingle she felt in her gut as a shimmering golden symbol appeared in the air in front of her.

"See," Ginny said, gesturing to the symbol.

Hermione knew she had seen there somewhere before, and she wracked her brain trying to place it.

"Oh,' she gasped when she remembered the last time she had seen that symbol. "Oh, oh!"

"You really didn't know?" Ginny asked.

"No, I wasn't even looking for the signs," Hermione said, running her hands through her hair. "I mean, considering everything we've been dealing with, I hadn't considered the possibility of a pregnancy."

"Are we happy about this?" Ginny asked carefully with a slightly raised brow. "I mean I know you were taking birth control before… and well, just are we happy about this?"

"Yes," Hermione gushed as the news finally sunk in. "Yes, yes! This is exactly what I wanted!"

"Congratulations," Ginny cheered lurching forward to pull Hermione into a tight hug. "I'm so excited for you!"

"Ooh, we can't tell anyone yet," Hermione said as the news really settled on her. "I have to figure out how I want to tell Severus about it. We hadn't discussed trying yet."

"Well surely he thought of it as a possibility," Ginny hedged. "I mean certain activities are known for causing this."

"Yes, but up until a few weeks ago I didn't have a uterus so we didn't have to worry about it," Hermione scathed. "I mean, he took the time to develop a potion that would help me regenerate what I had lost to the surgeries, but I don't think it occurred to either of us that we might need to start taking precautions. I mean this is what I wanted, and what he wanted, but we never discussed a time table."

"Well, okay, let's just stay calm," Ginny said soothingly. "For today let's just worry about the wedding ceremony. The baby will keep, you don't have to say anything right now."

"Isn't it wrong to marry him without telling him?" Hermione said, worrying her bottom lip.

"You said he wanted kids as well right?" Ginny shrugged. "Does the time of when he finds out that he's getting what he wanted really matter all that much?"

Hermione just nodded her head, and tried to straightened her hair where she had mused it earlier. Ginny hurried forward to help her put it back into order, smiling like an idiot the entire time. It crept up on Hermione, a warm glowing happiness that made her feel as if she were floating on a cloud. Suddenly she wanted nothing more than to wrap Severus up in her arms and share this joy with him.

"It's crazy what a little knowledge can do," Ginny said with a smile. "Your cheeks pinked right up, and I swear you've already got the glow."

Hermione ran her fingers over her own cheek, feeling the subtle heat of a blush there. All she could do was offer Ginny a beaming smile as she turned to find the source of the sound approaching them. She saw immediately that the sound was the short little celebrant dressed in gold robes approaching them without paying regard for the plants he was trampling over.

"Oh, I didn't expect to see you here already," the man said in his squeaky little voice. "Usually it's the groom waiting for the bride."

"We just wanted to cast some quick cushioning charms before we begin," Ginny lied smoothly. "We just weren't quite sure where to cast them."

"I plan to conduct the ceremony on the bank of this little spring," the man sad, waving his hand toward the front of the grotto. "You can cast your charms while I cast mine on the water."

"Why don't I take care of those while you go collect your bouquet," Ginny said quickly. "Just pick the flowers that you like."

Hermione smiled and made her way over to where there were abundant flowers growing. There were so many to choose from, particularly when she couldn't focus on anything other than the life that was growing inside of her. It wasn't at all surprising to her, when she found herself standing on near the many different varieties of flowers holding a fistful of baby's breath. She heard the music that signified her entrance begin, and hastily grabbed a pink flower and added it to the middle of her makeshift bouquet. She quickly cast a charm to weave the stems together so it would not fall apart and made her way

She made her way through the plants over to the short path that lead to the front of the little pond. Her breath caught in her chest when she saw Severus waiting for her with a beaming smile on his face. She was vaguely aware of Ginny and Harry standing off to the side, and the celebrant standing in the water, but she had eyes only for the man was practically staring a hole through her. There was so much love radiating from his eyes that it was staggering, and she knew that just as much was pouring out of her toward him.

It was all she could do not to run to him, and throw herself into his arms. Still she moved a little more quickly than was probably social acceptable as she made her way down the short aisle created by the over grown fawna. As soon as she reached him she was unable to stop herself. She pulled him tightly to her, and breathed his scent deep inter lungs when he wrapped his arms around her.

"I'm pregnant," she whispered into his ear, unable to keep it to herself for even a short second in his presence.

He pulled back from the hug, placing a hand on either side of her face and looking deep into her eyes. She had thought she'd seen love in his gaze as she walked down the aisle, bit I was nothing compared to the look in his eyes now. He brushed his thumb over her cheekbone reverently before leaning forward and stealing her breath away with a searing kiss.

"Ahem," the celebrate said from the water. "You're a little ahead of schedule."

Harry and Ginny snickered as Hermione and Severus pulled away from one another. Hermione was blushing guiltily, but Severus looked completely at peace. She as sure he would kiss her again given half the chance, but instead he held her hand and led her the short distance to the water's edge. He held her arm delicately while she kneeled on the ground and then he joined her.

"We are here today to celebrate the love between Hermione Granger and Severus Snape," the celebrant said quietly. "Today you tie your lives, your magic, your futures together. Will the witnesses present the rings?"

Hermione looked at Severus in confusion, but he just nodded his head toward Harry who quickly produced a ring box from within his robes. Hermione had assumed there wouldn't be any rings, as they hadn't gone shopping for them but apparently Severus had a surprise for her. Harry handed the rings to the celebrant and then returned to his place at Ginny's side.

"Severus, will you place this ring on Hermione's hand and repeat after me?" the celebrant continued, handing a silver band over to Severus.

Hermione took a moment to stare at the ring with as he slid it onto her finger. The band was silver, and a small emerald was set into the band with a diamond on either side. It was beautiful, and it had that antique look that told her without words that it was an heirloom. She looked up to Severus whose eyes were watering as he mouthed the words _my moher's_.

"With this ring, I thee wed," Severus repeated after the celebrant had spoken. "With this ring, I promise to love, honor and protect you. With this ring I promise myself to you for better and for worse."

Severus brushed his thumb over the ring on her hand when he finished speaking, and Hermione had to fight the urge to kiss him again.

"Hermione will you place this ring on Severus's hand and repeat after me?" the celebrant said as he handed her a simple silver band.

"With this ring, I thee wed," Hermione repeated as she slid the ring into place on her lover's hand. "Wih this ring, I promise o love, hone and protect you. With this ring I promise myself to you for better and for worse."

"Please place your wands in the water," the celebrant instructed when the couple turned their attention back to him.

Hermione was still hesitant to do this part. She didn't like the idea of her wand somehow floating away, but they had already agreed to doing the water unity ceremony she couldn't really back out now. She slid her wand from its holster on her thigh and lowered it into the water in synchronization with Severus. She was surprised to see that they both floated easily on the surface of the water before rolling together to rest side by side in front of where the celebrant was kneeling in the water.

"Your lives, like the many particles in this water, will be impossible to separate after today," he spoke quietly as the water rolled gently beneath their wands. "Your magic will be both separate and as one from this day forward. Please hold this water in your hands as you would hold your lover."

Hermione and Severus both reached out to scoop the water into their hands, and whatever charms the celebrant had placed on the little pond, kept it from draining through their fingers. The was surprisingly warm in their hands.

"I want you to think of all the love you hold for one another as you add the water in your hands to the vial," he continued as he presented an overlarge bulbous potion vial.

He cast a charm that enlarged the top of the bottle so they could both add their water at the same time, and he held it carefully beneath them. Hermione and Severus reached forward at the same time to and they each dropped a hand away so the water could run into the vial. Hermione watched in amazement as the clear water from her hand turned to a silver mist within the bottle, and the clear water rushing out of Severus's hand turned to a deep red mist. The celebrant waved his hand and the top of the vial returned to normal size and cause the glass to melt together seamlessly sealing the vial.

"Like your essences in this vial, may your souls never be separated," he continued. "You may take your wands in hand once more for the marriage oath."

The celebrant continued to hold the vial while Severus and Hermione retrieved their wands from the water. This part Hermione already knew, and she instinctively reached out to place the tip of her wand against his. Severus smiled and met the pressure of her wand equally with so much love pouring out of him toward her she could swear she felt it sinking into her skin.

"At this time I invited you to make your own promise to your spouse that will bind you together forever." The celebrant smiled, following their instruction that they wanted to write their own vows.

Severus nodded to her, conceding the right to go first, and she locked eyes with him letting the words that defined her love flow from her.

"My love, my savior, my heart," Hermione whispered. "I promise to give you all the love in my heart for all of eternity."

"Hermione, my life, my sweetness, my hope," Severus responded reverently. "I promise to make you my life, to give you everything I have to offer, and to receive everything you give just as eagerly. I promise to love you forever."

When he finished speaking, golden sparks erupted from both of their wands, temporarily obscuring them in the sparkling shower it created. When they emerged from within it, the celebrant was beaming at them.

"I now pronounce you husband and wife," he said excitedly. "You may now kiss the bride."

Severus nearly dropped his wand into the water in his haste to kiss his wife. His free hand fisted in her hair, angling her head for better access, as he wrapped his wand arm around her back to hold her tightly too him. Hermione wrapped both of her arms eagerly around his neck and kissed him fervently. She could hear Harry and Ginny clapping with excitement, but she ignored them, choosing instead to kiss her husband until they were both breathless.

She kept her attention focus entirely on her until she heard the distinct flash and click of a camera. She turned her head to the side, and felt her blood begin to boil beneath the surface when she caught sight of Rita Skeeter's photographer snapping pictures from behind one of the bushes. She was about to start calling for Skeeter, to inform her that she was going to be turning her into the ministry, when she saw that the reporter in tow was male and clearly higher up the food chain at the daily prophet if the state of his robes were any indication.

"What the hell are you doing here?" Harry shouted as he released Ginny and started moving aggressively toward the pair.

"Your office said you were at a wedding," the reporter said nervously as he began backing up from the wizarding world's most prominent war hero barreled toward him. "And the paper already had reporters from a young woman that you've been associating with the mysterious Severus Snape. That same woman reported that Severus Snape has been associating with one Hermione Granger. It was a bit of a stretch, but it looks like my hunch paid off."

"You don't think you're actually going to run an article on this do you?" Harry glowered as he reached their location.

"Freedom of the press," the photographer snarked back.

"Oh, don't you start with me," Harry growled. "I'll have both your jobs for this, not to mention Rita Skeeter's as I'm sure that's where you heard about Calais from!"

"Let it go Potter," Severus said quietly as he stood, gently pulling Hermione with him. "So people find out we've married. Not exactly the end of the world."

Harry gaped at this amazingly calm Severus, giving the reporter and photographer the opportunity to apparate away. Ginny quickly looked around making sure no muggles had been present to witness the seen, but Hermione could hardly care. She had eyes only for Severus, and he her. Without another word to anyone in their company, Severus pulled her close to his chest, and apparated the pair of them out of the botanical garden.


	19. Chapter 19

"**Only a man who has felt ultimate despair is capable of feeling ultimate bliss."**

**-Alexandre Dumas**

* * *

When Hermione was just a girl, she imagined that after her wedding she would go on an extravagant honeymoon with her new husband. She had done just that when she had married Ron, and it had led to nothing but heartache in the end. So she was completely content to simply go home with Severus after officially tying herself. They tucked away their unity vial for later contemplation and escaped to the oasis that was their bedroom. And what was the difference between a white sandy beach, and a warm comfortable bedroom when they did not emerge for several days?

* * *

"Do you have to go back to work," Hermione said tiredly as she burrowed deeper into the blankets to avoid the creeping fall chill.

"If I want to keep my job I do," he chuckled as he buttoned up his shirt. "Besides, I imagine you'd get more of your research done without me here to distract you."

"And if I want to be distracted?" she mused.

"Then you shall have to wait for such distractions until this afternoon," Severus said before stealing a quick kiss. "When I have gotten off of work."

"Fine," she said with a frown that was only partial faked. "I have some reading to do anyway."

"See, the day is not completely wasted," Severus said with a smile as he walked briskly out of the room.

He was already running late to start preparing the fields for replanting due to Hermione's previously successful attempts to keep him from going to work, so he was rather in a hurry to be on his way now. Hermione however was in no rush, and leisurely fluffed their pillows into a makeshift lounge chair and summoned her book to her. Intellectually she knew she should be further investigating her notes on vibrational medicine, but she was much more excited by the prospect of reading the pregnancy book Ginny had sent her.

She'd finally noticed the weight that had caught Ginny's attention, but she found she didn't much mind that. She had also noticed the frequent need to urinate, but she was much less accepting of that. She hadn't cast any charms to warm the house, and the thought of leaving her cocoon of blankets to use the restroom was highly unpleasant. She was already exhausted but the book suggested that would pass soon enough. It was the burgeoning nausea that the book spoke of that she was most irritated with. She'd had more than enough vomiting for one lifetime and wasn't particularly excited to do I again.

She was excited to read about what her baby looked like right now. She calculated that she was ten weeks pregnant which meant that while the baby was only about an inch long it had most of its important organs and was developing fingernails. When she and Severus went to visit a healer in Cambron this weekend it was likely they would get to hear the heartbeat. Just the thought of hearing their child's heartbeat brought tears to her eyes, but she thought that might be part of the cycling hormones.

She wiped at her misty eyes and laughed at her own ridiculousness before drawing her wand and finally casting a warming charm. She really had to go to the bathroom, and the chill just couldn't be abided any longer. She dashed off to the bathroom to relieve her issue before deciding that while she was in there a nice hot bath would certainly keep her warm while she waited for the fire she was about to conjure to spread it's warmth throughout the house.

* * *

"I thought I might go visit my friends on the commune while you are at work today," she said while he massaged shampoo into her hair.

"You should ask the girl for her recipe for smoothies," Severus said, surprising her with his lack of objection. "I remain unable to recreate her berry combination in the right proportion to the wey protein."

"You really liked the smoothies didn't you?" Hermione asked with a smile.

"I did," he answered, as he gently tilted her head back to rinse the shampoo out. "But I much prefer the many nutritional benefits they offer a growing fetus."

"Do you think when we know the gender you'll stop calling our child a fetus?" Hermione asked with a chuckle.

"Well he or she is technically a fetus," Severus pointed out as she began to lather his hair. "And there is the minor issue that you are adorable when you speak about the baby growing in your womb, where as I sound like as I never received a formal education."

"Really Severus," Hermione snickered as she scratched against that magic spot at the base of his head. "Are you worried about your appearance here in the shower, with your wife?"

"Point well made," he conceded. "But I raise you the issue that if I were to start saying baby, I may then succumb to the somewhat gnawing urge to converse with your abdomen."

"Oh well that would just be tragic," she said sarcastically as she lowered a hand to caress her swollen belly. "Then you might perhaps look like me."

"Is that so," he asked with a quirked brow.

"Yes," Hermione laughed. "Just yesterday afternoon I had a nice long discussion with our growing child about how he or she should keep up the good work and not make mommy vomit."

"See it's adorable when you say something like that," Severus groaned while he leaned back to let the water run through his hair. "Whereas there is nothing adorable about this."

He swiftly kneeled down and pressed a quick kiss to her growing abdomen before he began to whisper to their baby.

"I know that you won't be able to hear me for another nine weeks or so, but I just want you to know that your daddy loves you," he said quietly before running his fingers lightly over her skin.

"You're right, it's not adorable," Hermione said in a breathy voice. "It's perfect."

* * *

Hermione had to admit that she probably should have taken her husband's advice and driven the truck into town. When she was getting ready to head into town, the idea of getting a bit of exercise by taking the old bike she'd found propped against the shed, but now that the sun had hidden behind the clouds and the wind had picked up the idea felt a bit idiotic. Almost as idiotic as not wearing a sweater at the beginning of October when she knew the weather was unpredictable. Still it would take longer to ride back to the house and get the truck than it would to ride the rest of the way to the old house. So she rode on, her mood somewhat dampened.

Her smile returned quickly when she rode up to the house, and saw that Brandon. Micah, and Sierra were all there. Sierra had set up her pottery wheel in the yard and was working with extreme focus while Micah painted her. Hermione wondered if she was even aware if that she was being painted but opted not to say anything as she parked the bike. Brandon noticed her first, abandoning his work of repainting the front door of the house with a mural scene and bounding off the porch to greet her.

"Look at you," he boomed, immediately drawing Micah and Sierra's attention as he hurried down the walk toward her. "Your hair is growing so fast."

"Vitamins," she chuckled as she stepped around the bike and opened her arms for the hug she knew was coming.

Brandon quickly swept her up into his arms, but she felt him stiffen almost immediately and pull away. His face dropped as he reached out to touch her stomach. His brown constricted and he looked up to meet her eyes.

"It came back?" he asked sadly. "Why didn't you tell us sooner? You're not refusing treatment again are you?"

"Brandon," Hermione cut him off realizing what he must think. "You misunderstand. This is actual weight, not fluid from cancer."

Brandon looked down at her abdomen and then back up to her face. He did not look convinced or comforted.

"Ok, twist my arm," she said with a bright smile. "I'm pregnant."

"Oh my god!" Sierra chirped.

She abandoned her pottery wheel mid spin completely ruining the vase she had been shaping, as she dashed over to put her hands on the baby bump. Hermione grimaced slightly at the clay that was deposited on her shirt, but let it go when she reminded herself it would wash out.

"How far along are you?" she asked when she released her hold and backed up so Micah could have a look.

"About ten weeks," Hermione shrugged, a beaming smile overtaking her face. "I found out just before the wedding."

"I still cannot believe you ran off and got married without saying anything to us," Micah shook his head. "It's not as if we would have let slip to the staff at the hospital that you were lying before about being married."

"We wanted a private ceremony," Hermione pointed out. "I am sorry though. Do you think you can forgive me?"

"Obviously," Sierra said dismissively. "How else will we be certain we get quality time with the baby when it arrives?"

"I'm rather certain Severus would give you whatever visitation rights you wanted if you were to give me the recipe for your smoothies," Hermione laughed. "His many failed attempts at trying to recreate them are starting to aggravate him."

"I'll be right back!" she cheered before running into the house.

"Why don't we all go inside?" Brandon suggested, looking up at the sky. "It looks like it's about to rain."

Hermione knew better than to disregard a weather prediction made by Brandon, he was never wrong. Sure enough, they had barely made it under the protective overhand of the porch, and an absolute downpour started. Hermione laughed as they all hurried inside to avoid the cold and the wet. She wished that she had cast and impenetrable charm on the seat of the bike, but it was a little late now.

"Here it is," Sierra trilled as she danced out of the kitchen with a scrap of construction paper clutched in her hand.

Hermione took the paper and gave it a quick once over.

"No wonder he couldn't get it right," Hermione laughed. "You can't even taste a hint of the kale."

"The flavor is masked by the wey," Sierra shrugged. "It's loaded with vitamin A and C though, and it's a strong anti-inflammatory, which was the main reason I started adding it to your smoothies."

"You're a genius," Hermione beamed, tucking the recipe into the pocket of her chinos.

"If it makes a difference, I always buy the wey protein at the import grocer on Alder street," Sierra said off handedly as they joined the boys in the living room.

Brandon was stoking the fire back to life while Micah tried to find a radio station that wasn't affected by the storm. Hermione slid into her old seat on the couch, and for a moment it was as if nothing had change, but then her stomach roiled with just the hint of nausea and she remembered that there was a baby growing inside of her. Unconsciously she reached out to run her hand over her stomach.

"Will any of you have pieces in this month's gala?" Hermione asked.

"I was so close," Micah answered. "But I have to admit Amber's portrait of the Queen of England was very good."

"What was your piece?" Hermione pushed, intrigued.

"I painted you again," he admitted without meeting her gaze. "The day you fell asleep on the porch swing, just before you moved away. The image just sort of stuck with me I suppose.'

"Well for personal reasons I'm sort of glad they didn't pick it then," she shrugged. "I don't really want everyone seeing what I looked like bald."

"You did have a scarf on," Micah hedged.

"Still," Hermione sighed. "Baldness covered by a scarf is still vastly unappealing."

Brandon turned away from the fire and gave her an incredulous look before moving to take up residence in the chair on the opposite side of the room.

"I've actually been thinking of shaving my hair off," Sierra shrugged as she fiddled with the miniature zen garden on the coffee table. "Well more like a buzz cut, but quiet short. Very Shinead and all."

"Actually, that would look fantastic with your cheek bones," Hermione mused as she tried to picture Sierra without her messy blonde locks."

"I told her I'd do it for her, but she seemed convinced I was going to make her look just like me," Brandon laughed. "I most likely didn't help my case by pointing out that Shinead O'Connor and I have the same haircut."

"Well, we're all stuck inside until the rain ends," Hermione shrugged. "I could do it for you."

"That would be great," Sierra cheered, lighting up. "Brandon can we borrow your trimmers?"

* * *

"You are friends with very strange people," Severus said as they sat before the fire drinking smoothies. "I hope you told Sierra as much when she burst into tears."

"Oh come now, how was she to know that she was going to absolutely hate having her hair that short," Hermione asked. "Besides, that strange person gave you the recipe for these smoothies."

"Thank you for picking up the kale and wey by the by," Severus said before his brow climbed into his hair. "And the very idea that she might like having her hair that short is absurd. I've not yet met a woman who willingly cut her hair that short."

"So are you saying women with short hair are unappealing?" she asked pointedly.

"Obviously not," he countered. "I am saying that there is a social paradigm wherein woman are expected to have hair of a certain length, and I have yet to meet a woman who actually felt differently about that. Your friend Sierra included apparently."

"Oh you are very good," Hermione chuckled.

"May I continue to have such luck talking myself out of verbal traps in the future," he toasted while raising his glass to clink against hers.

"Here's another quagmire for you," Hermione said with a quirked brow of her own. "Do you think I've gotten fat?"

"I think you've gotten pregnant," Severus chuckled before ignoring his own protests from earlier in the day and lowering his mouth to her abdomen. "And you are just making a little room for yourself aren't you love?"

"I love you," Hermione gushed as she twined her fingers in her husband's hair.

"Me or the baby," he chuckled as he showered her stomach with kisses.

"Both, definitely both," Hermione sighed contentedly.


	20. Chapter 20

"**In the end, we decide if we're remembered for what happened to us or for what we did with it. " **

**-Randy K. Milholland**

* * *

Hermione and Severus had opted to see a muggle doctor for their pregnancy appointments, and while it meant a little more traveling to avoid the doctors that would be terribly surprised to discover that Hermione once again had a uterus it did mean that they didn't have to deal with wizarding healers who Hermione had very little faith in. They'd made the drive over to Cambron about five weeks ago for their first appointment, and just as she'd suspected Hermione had cried at the sound of their child's heartbeat. Severus had been emotional, but had managed to keep from crying like she had.

Hermione had been wondering if she would continue to look ridiculous at each appointment being the only emotional party. Today had dis-proven that theory however, when Severus had to hide his watery eyes from the OBGYN when she announced that they were having a boy. Hermione didn't have a preference for one gender or the other, but it appeared that Severus had been hoping for a boy.

"What do you think of the name Tiberion?" Severus asked as he drove them back to Abbeville.

"That depends; do you think he'd enjoy being teased for several years during his childhood?" Hermione giggled.

"Okay, why not something more sociable," Severus said with a quirked brow. "Such as Rick or perhaps Tom."

"Definitely not Tom," Hermione said with a shake of the head. "What about William or Charles."

"Those are both Weasley names, I'd rather not," he responded quickly, though there was no sneer.

"Fair point," she shrugged. "How about Henry?"

"Elliot?" he countered.

"Marcus," Hermione mused.

"Philip," he suggested.

"Oh," Hermione gasped, her hand shooting to her rounded belly. "I think he likes Philip."

"What happened?" Severus asked, his eyes darting between the road and his wife rapidly.

"I felt him move," she rhapsodized. "It was a tiny little flutter, but I felt it right after you said Philip."

"Philip it is then," Severus said softly, taking one hand off the wheel to rest gently on her stomach to feel the movement if it were to happen again.

* * *

"I've finally got it!" she shouted from the lab, rousing Severus from where is he had been drifting off to sleep in the chair. "Severus come quickly."

He hopped out of his chair and ran into the room, wondering why in the world his wife was still working in the lab at eleven oclock at night. He paused in the doorway, taking in the sight of her swelling belly, and he wild hair that had reached beyond her shoulders as it grew rapidly due to all of the hormones coursing through her body. She was beautiful, but she looked very tired standing over the potion she'd been working on.

"My spell just wouldn't work no matter how I altered the incantation or the wand movement, and I finally got it," she said enthusiastically as she gestured to the cauldron before her. "It's because I needed a potion to freeze all cell development prior to the casting of the spell."

Intrigued, Severus swept forward to look into the pewter cauldron, and evaluate the silver hued potion within. The smoke issuing from the potion was pouring over the edges and falling toward the work table due to its density, and he found that to be most interesting.

"Have you tested the potion yet?" he asked academically.

"Look at Bertha!" she cheered pointing to the rat in the large aquarium she had been working with. "Go ahead cast the spell, not a spot of cancer present anymore!"

Severus swept over to the cage, and noted immediately that the coloring on the rat seemed better. Bertha was moving about in the cedar chips, rather than lying about lethargically like she had been. IT was a very good sign. He raised his wand with growing excitement and cast the diagnostic spell on the rat only to receive glowing green results that could mean only one thing.

"Do you realize what this means?" he asked as he turned back to his tired, but ecstatically happy wife who was nodding her head. "You've cured cancer Hermione."

"I know," she chirped dancing about excitedly before reaching for the lab table to steady herself.

"You've been standing in this hot room for far too long," he clucked at her display of dizziness as he swept forward to slid his arm under hers. "You're twenty weeks pregnant woman, you can't keep such exhaustive hours without consequences."

"You're right," she sighed tiredly leaning into him. "But I need to bottle the potion and finalize my notes before bed. I can't stop right now, I've just made a major medical breakthrough."

"How about this," Severus sighed. "We'll settle you at the table where you can finish up your notes while you have a quick bite to eat, and I will bottle your potion and clean up the lab. Then we can both go to bed."

"Will you rub my feet before we go to sleep," Hermione asked with a sleepy smile.

"Only if you promise that the next time you work in the lab you'll use to stool instead of standing for hours on end," he countered as he helped her slid into the chair at the table.

"You have my word," she promised before turning her attention excitedly to her battered journal full of cancer research.

* * *

Hermione drove Severus out to the field he would be working in for the day and dropped him off so she could take the truck with her. She had officially thrown in the towel on the whole idea of riding the bike at this size, and she needed to mail her research to the ministry of magic. Traffic was light this early in the day, but more so because it was snowing and Hermione had noticed that the people of Abbeville did not particularly enjoy driving in the snow.

She parked outside the post office and coaxed herself out of the warm cab of the truck and into the chilly air. She'd wrapped herself up on not one but two over-sized sweaters for this trip, but she was still quite cold as she waddled as quickly as she could into the thankfully well heated post office. She hoisted her carefully packed little box with her concluded research and potion samples onto the counter. She was greeted with a beaming smile by the post mistress who now knew her by name, and no longer greeted her in French.

"No letters today?" she asked as she took Hermione's package, paying great care when she saw that Hermione had written fragile in capitals on the top.

"I haven't gotten post back from my friends yet," Hermione shrugged.

"That's never stopped you before," the post mistress laughed as she began processing the package in earnest.

"Caught me, I was just too tired," Hermione lied, paying obvious attention to her pregnant belly as an excuse rather than trying to explain that her post arrived at her house by owl.

"You know what you need?" she said as she weighed the package. "Baked potatoes, and a lot of them.$12.45."

"I will certainly do that," Hermione said somewhat dismissively as she paid for the shipping on the package. "You have a nice day."

"You as well Hermione," she said cheerily to Hermione's retreating form.

Hermione was pleased to see that the snow at least had stopped falling when she stepped back outside. It still wasn't warm by any means, but she opted to walk the short distance from the post office to the corner market where she needed to pick up a few grocery items. She was paying particular care to where she stepped, not wanting to slip on a bit of ice in her condition, so she was caught unawares when she nearly bumped into the man standing in the middle of the sidewalk.

Her breath caught in her chest when she found herself standing no more than three feet away from none of the Ronald Weasley. Her heart took off at a sprint in her chest, but he did not make a move to come any closer to her so she managed to hold her ground. She pulled her sweaters more tightly around her, automatically moving to protect her protruding belly from the man before her.

"W-what are you doing here?" she finally managed to stammer.

"I just wanted to see you," he said in a soft voice that was not at all threatening. "I see that you are pregnant."

"I am," she flinched, suddenly aware of the fact that she hadn't brought her wand, a fact Severus was likely to chide her for if this went as badly as she assumed it would.

"I always knew you'd be beautiful when pregnant," he said quietly, kicking his foot at snow on the sidewalk without succeeding at moving it. "Did you know Ginny is pregnant as well? Nearly all the way gone now, there will be a pudgy little baby any day now."

"I did know Ginny was pregnant. We do write fairly regularly," Hermione answered somewhat stiffly. "She didn't mention that you might be coming for a visit."

"Well I couldn't really tell her could I?" he shrugged sadly. "I wasn't even sure I'd actually come. I just needed to see you. I don't want any trouble, I swear it."

"I don't mean to be rude, but I think perhaps you should leave," Hermione said as she straightened her back. "Severus would be very upset if he knew you were here, let alone that I'm talking to you."

"I don't want any trouble," he repeated backing away from her. "I just needed to see you, or perhaps for you to see me. I'll just be on my way now."

Hermione nodded her head decisively and continued on her way to the grocers. She wanted to pick up a few things before returning to the farm and dropping off the truck at the field Severus was working in. Of course, now she would be needing to stop by the house to pick up her wand first so she might cast the much needed heating charms for the short walk back to the house. It would have been so much simpler to just apparate, but she didn't want to risk splinching herself while pregnant.

* * *

The plan had been to wait until Severus had come home and somewhat awkwardly inform him of her encounter with Ronald in town. But she had been in the bath when he had finally made it in from tending the snow covered fields, and had been sufficiently distracted by her nude form. They had endeavored to engage their time in other ways, and by the time they had finished Hermione had been so tired she had fallen asleep without even eating dinner. Somehow when she woke in the morning it seemed like a bad idea to tell him about what had happened the day before. She anticipated a fight over not having told him right away, and justified simply not mentioning it based on the idea that she would likely never see Ronald again.

So with a lingering guilty feeling in her gut she allowed Severus to leave for work without saying anything and settled in for a day of comfortable lassitude. She now had no cancer research to fill her time, but there were still plenty of books on pregnancy and motherhood that she could fill her time with. So she settled in a nest of blankets before the fire with the well-known book What to Expect When You're Expecting and a warm mug of cocoa.

She only lasted a few minutes into her reading before she had to put her legs up on the arm of the couch to tray and relieve some of the swelling her ankles and calves. She knew that was only going to grow worse, but she found she couldn't get too terribly upset about it when Severus was so quick to massage the pain away for her. Instead she tried to ignore it while he was at work and focus her attention on the book in her lap instead.

Unfortunately her mind kept wondering to how they should handle the nursery. Should they put it where the lab was, or should they create an additional room for it? If they went that way should they magically expand the house once more, or should they go the muggle route and actually build an expansion on the house? Living here, people were going to notice that they'd had a child, if nothing else the farm owner whose land this house was on would notice, so surely that meant they were practically required to actually build the extension wasn't it?

She made a mental note to bring that up with Severus and instead started day dreaming about little toy boats stenciled onto the wall. Philip sounded like a boy who would like boats didn't it? Or perhaps he would like to have a depiction from one of Beadle Bard's tales on his wall. Perhaps the cackling stump? The story of the Deathly Hallows was surprisingly still Hermione's favorite, but she was highly adverse to putting those ideas in her son's head. It didn't really matter much that the elder wand had been snapped in two, or that the stone had been lost by Harry, just the idea of them might someday inspire her child to pursue those temptations. She refused to be responsible for putting those ideas in his head from the cradle. She dismissed the tales entirely, and started pondering the idea of dinosaurs instead.


	21. Chapter 21

"**The only thing that saves us from the bureaucracy is inefficiency. An efficient bureaucracy is the greatest threat to liberty."**

**-Eugene McCarthy**

* * *

"Is there someone knocking at the door?" Hermione asked groggily as she poked her head out from under the blankets only to be greeted by the darkness that told her morning had not fully broken yet.

"That is someone breaking and entering," Severus growled, flying out of bed his wand already in hand without a care for the fact that he was only dressed in his briefs as he barreled out of the bedroom.

"Mrs. Hermione Snape," she heard a male voice calling, clearly already inside the house, and tiny bit of curiosity edged out her fear.

"Who is that," she hissed as she wrapped the sheet around herself to shield her nightgown as well as her pregnant belly before taking her wand in hand and sliding out of bed.

"What exactly do you think you're doing in my house," she heard Severus snap at the intruder as she shuffled out of the bedroom to peak through the kitchen toward the living room.

Someone had cast a lumos so the living room was glowing with light casting Severus as a silhouette who still has his wand drawn and held artfully before him. She supposed that he should look ridiculous half crouched in a dueling stance only wearing underwear, but he still looked incredibly intimidating. She crept out of the bedroom so she could stay hidden behind him, but attempt to catch sight of who it was in the living room.

"I'll have to ask you to stow your wand Mr. Snape," the tall wizard said firmly. "Or I'm afraid I will have to place you under arrest."

"I see no auror insignia on your robes," Severus growled. "I will be doing no such thing."

"Of course you do not see the insignia for an auror, I am an unspeakable," the man said just as calmly, and Hermione noted he chose not to disclose his name. "Now stow your wand or find both you are your wife occupying detention cells at the ministry of magic."

"Why are you here?" Hermione asked quietly from behind Severus.

"What are you doing out of the bedroom?" Severus shot over his shoulder in a whisper, refusing to take his eyes off of the intruder even as he lowered his wand.

"I have been dispatched by the department of mysteries to collect any and all data and supplies related to the research project you were recently partaking in," he said blandly. "I have very little time, so it would work best if you could collect it as quickly as possible."

"Why are you collecting my research?" Hermione asked in confusion, not budging from her spot behind Severus.

"Your research is a potential violate of the statute of secrecy as has henceforth been terminated." He said firmly. "Now if you could provide your research materials."

"How is a cure for cancer a violation of the statute of secrecy?" Hermione screeched, seized by the urge to throw something at him.

"Just because you do not see the full possibilities of your work, does not mean that issues do not exist," he said cryptically. "Now provide your work, or I shall have to detain you while I search your house."

"I'll give you my research just as soon as you tell me what it is I created if it wasn't a cure for cancer," Hermione pouted.

The man swished his wand, and with a flash of orange light she found that her feet were locked to the floor and her hands locked to her sides rendering her wand hand completely useless. She saw that Severus was facing a similar problem, and wondered if the two of them should be afraid for their safety, or simply angered that their home was being invaded by a pompous ministry figure.

"While your potion is of little consequence, the spell you created has the potential to turn muggles into wizards by altering their biochemistry and could be used inappropriately in the wrong hands." The wizard explained quietly as he began searching the living room and snatching up any book that appeared to be related to her research and sticking it into a pocket in his robe that clearly had an undetectable extension charm on it.

"You have got to be kidding me," Severus grumbled, shifting awkwardly, and clearly trying to free himself from the spell holding him in place.

"Actually," Hermione said a strange weight settling in her stomach. "That is a possibility I hadn't considered, but isn't completely out of the realm of possibility. I mean the spell alters the internal vibrations on a cellular level. It is not impossible that such a spell could be cast on a muggle and used to change the frequency of the vibrations to match those of a wizard and thus creating another witch or wizard."

"Mrs. Snape is correct," the unspeakable said distractedly as he moved into their lab.

They could no longer see him, but they could hear the clinking of jars the suggested the man was putting any potion ingredients related to the potion she had developed into that magical pocket of his. Hermione was torn between surprise at what she had accidentally created, and the urge to burst into tears over all of her work being stolen away. Her only hope was that he would not venture into the kitchen and find her tattered research journal where she had catalogued all of her different trials and errors.

"Are you able to move either of your arms?" Severus asked tersely, obviously still toying with the idea of trying to remove the unspeakable from their home.

"No, I can't seem to move anything other than my head," Hermione muttered. "Do things like this happen frequently? Is it even legal for the ministry to do this?"

"By using the heading of a possible violation of the statute of secrecy the ministry has covered all of its bases," Severus answered with supreme irritation. "This event will likely be buried under a mountain of paperwork and never mentioned again."

"Oh, I'm going to mention it!" Hermione said, her ire growing rapidly. "I'll go straight to the papers if I have to."

"That will not be happening," a female voice said, causing the pair to whip their heads back toward the living room looking for the source.

A new wand tip ignited as the source of the voice stepped forward, revealing that there were actually two unspeakables present in their home. The woman lifted her wand, casting light on her face and revealing a face that did not match the full set of black robes. Hermione took one look at bedazzled cat eye glasses framed by curled hair and her blood pressure shot through the roof.

"Rita Skeeter!" she scathed. "What are you doing in my house? And since when the unspeakables bring reporters with them?"

"I am an unspeakable now," Skeeter said with a nasty smile. "Which you only have yourself to blame for of course. In an order to avoid future blackmail from you I registered with the ministry as an animagus. As it turns out it is illegal for an animagus to work for the press, but it is a happily recruited skill in the department of mysteries. Of course I am only here observing tonight. I am still in training."

"There is something missing," the male unspeakable said as he joined his trainee in the living room. "I can find no book with her research findings recorded in it."

"I didn't keep one," Hermione lied petulantly.

The man ignored her and swept his wand through the air in a set of intricate swirls that left a trail of silver smoke in their wake. When his wand came to a stop the smoke swept forward in a line that trailed before him leading him past Severus and Hermione and into the kitchen. To Hermione's horror it led him directly to where her journal sat on the kitchen table, and he swept it up and into his pocket without remorse.

"That appears to be all of it," he said with a succinct nod of the head. "I'll need your help with the next part Rita."

The nasty woman hurried into the kitchen to stand eagerly beside him, and neither Hermione or Severus were able to look at the pair of them where they stood as they were still locked in place by the spell he had cast upon them. Hermione had given up on holding back her tears now that all of her research had been taken, but she was at least managing to keep them quiet as she stare at her husband's back feeling absolutely miserable.

"Slip your arms under her elbows," the man said. "We can have her falling and injuring herself or the baby."

Hermione heard Severus hiss something as two rather less than gently arms forced their way between her own arms and her body, but then she couldn't seem to hear anything at all. Her mind went fuzzy before the world seemed to disappear entirely. Severus was desperate to be able to turn around and help his wife as he heard spells being cast, but he was frozen in place unable to do anything as he listened to the unspeakables first obliviate his wife and then stun her. His rage was only kept at bay by the lack of sound indicating that she had been allowed to fall.

There was a shuffling sound that he assumed meant Hermione was being moved, but then his own mind began to grow foggy before he forgot entirely why he had been upset. His eyes drifted closed and he slumped toward the ground, only just being caught by the male unspeakable before he collapsed on the floor. The two unspeakables positioned the married couple in their beds, and draped their blankets over them so it would look as if they had never risen from bed this morning. They made one last sweep of the house to be sure they had not forgotten any other evidence of the research Hermione and Severus would never remember having completed from the house. Rita Skeeter couldn't help but smirk at the fact that her arch nemesis would wake up without any knowledge of having ever attempted to change medical history, or even being inspired to research a cure for cancer.

* * *

Life was fairly uneventful for Hermione and Severus as Christmas drew near. They spent most of their time lazing about the house and enjoying the little joyous discoveries of pregnancy as neither of them had any work to do. Hermione still hadn't pursued employment, at Severus's request considering her condition, and Severus as well as the other farm hands had the next few weeks off as there was not much work to be done on the dormant farm.

"Severus come here," Hermione chirped happily from where she was seated closely to the fire. "You have to feel this."

Severus came in from the where he had been collecting the mail on the porch and joined her by the fire.

"Here, put your hand like this," she said, reaching out to grab his hand, and placing it on the top of her growing stomach.

She began to hum a Christmas carol, and in response their son began to move about. Severus light up when the skin beneath his hand was pushed up and his son's foot rolled across the top of Hermione's stomach.

"He likes it when I hum to him," Hermione said with a beaming smile. "You should try."

Severus leaned a bit closer, and began humming an old lullaby, his smile growing larger when his son kicked his hand once more. He kept humming, thoroughly engrossed with the movements of his son while Hermione commandeered the post still clutched in his other hand. She grabbed the letter addressed to her in Harry's handwriting and ripped it open. Her eyes quickly scanned the somewhat short missive another smile appearing on her face.

"Ginny's had the baby," Hermione announced, drawing her husband's attention back to her. "James Sirius Potter was very nearly a Christmas baby."

"That is a dreadful name," Severus said with a slight scowl as he abandoned the humming exercise and began to flip through the other mail. "Oh here's another for you Hermione."

She took it, suppressing a grimace when she saw that it was from the ministry of magic. She hadn't spoken with anyone at the ministry since she had walked out on her job at the beginning of what had once been her nightmare. To her dismay it was in fact from The Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophies, and she could only imagine how unpleasant the letter would be. To her surprise it was a rather pleasant letter.

"The head of the obliviation squad, Mnemone Radford, has finally retired," she said conversationally, her eye automatically landing on Severus where he stood reading some other bit of post that seemed to displease him. "I'm on the short list of people they'd like to promote into the position. I can't believe I'm even being considered for it considering I basically just walked out on the ministry."

"Would you be working in the field again?" Severus asked, turning away from his post to meet her gaze.

"The department head only goes out in the field in extreme circumstances," Hermione answered. "Mostly is a desk job with a lot of paperwork."

"Are you interested in taking the position?" he asked, the worry seeming to drain out of his face.

"I'm not completely against the idea," Hermione shrugged. "Though it would mean moving back to London, so it wouldn't just be my decision."

"If we made this move, would you be taking the job because you are genuinely interested in it?" he asked somewhat delicately. "Or would you be continuing a misguided attempt to punish yourself for the unfortunate circumstances with your parents?"

"I'm interested in going back to work again," she answered honestly, having to think rather hard about the question he had asked. "And while it would remind me of my parents, that isn't why I am interested in the job. It would however provide me with more opportunity to research a possible reversal of their condition."

"And would I be required to foster a friendship with the Potter's if we were to return to England?" Severus asked with a slightly less amused expression.

"No," she said with a laugh. "Though I would be able to see them more often."

"I see no problem than with you going for the position then," he shrugged before tossing the letter in his hand into the fire and returning to his position kneeling before her and humming to her abdomen once more.

"You wouldn't mind leaving your job here if I got the position?" she asked, her attention focused on the movement of their son.

"I have no emotional attachment to farming," he shrugged. "There also isn't much need for me to hide in France now that the wizarding world knows I'm alive."

"Well, I'll send a letter out tomorrow informing them of my interest," she chirped, settling further into the chair to enjoy the moment.

* * *

Hermione barely made it to the post office in time to send off her letter before it closed the next day. In all of her excitement she had forgotten that it was Christmas eve and the business hours in town had been shortened. The reminder of approaching Christmas also made her realize she had never purchased a stockings or any stocking stuffers for Christmas morning. It was the one bit of muggle Christmas she had missed since joining the wizarding world and Severus had promised to indulge her. It was somewhat ironic that she had been the one to forget it in the end.

"Pregnancy brain," she muttered to herself as she swept into the little shop that sold all sorts of different trinkets.

Normally it was only tourists that shopped in this particular place, but it was also one of the only shops still open. Not to mention she had seen stockings hanging in the window, so at the worst she could try to buy the displays of the shelf stock was out.

Luck was with her however, and there were several different stockings hanging on a shelf not far from the door. She delighted at the sight of an emerald green one and immediately collected it for Severus. She was just selecting a red on for herself when she noticed another shopper on the other side of the chest high shelf she was standing up. She looked up, and surprisingly found herself face to face with Ronald Weasley again.

"Hello Hermione," he said with a crooked smile. "Shopping for Christmas?"

"Are you living in Abbeville now?" she whispered, looking about the shop as if she expected to see another Weasley somewhere.

"No, I just popped in to see you," he shrugged.

"Ron," she scathed. "You can't just pop in on me. I'm married to another man, he wouldn't appreciate it."

"I know you're married," he said with a gentle smile. "You and Severus are having a baby, but we can still be friends."

"Since when do you call him Severus?" she asked with a quirked brow.

"Would you rather I keep referring to him as the bat of the dungeons?" he said with a light laugh. "Look I'm happy for you, I really am. I just want to be friends again."

"I don't know Ron," Hermione said awkwardly, wringing her hands around the stockings.

"I know I have a lot to make up to you," he said softly, his eyes imploring her. "I'm just asking you to consider giving me a chance to earn your forgiveness."

She just stared at him, unsure of what to say.

"Just give it a thought alright?" he asked, and then he walked away leaving her staring after him as he exited the shop.

She return to her shopping for trinkets ignoring the way the shop keeper was staring at her. It probably looked awfully strange for her to be having a hushed conversation with an unknown man in a store without her husband in tow. Or perhaps the shop owner was staring because her pregnancy was showing quite a bit these days. Either way the gaze made her uncomfortable so she hurried to gather what she wanted and cash out so she could vacate the premises.

* * *

When she returned home Severus immediately engaged her in a conversation about their potential move to London and somehow she failed yet again to mention her encounter with Ron. The pair discussed different housing options while they made dinner together and there didn't seem to be a good opening to mention that anything in her day had been out of the ordinary. Then they were eating dinner, and she didn't want to spoil his appetite or her own. Then the two of them were getting ready for bed, and that certainly didn't seem like the right time.

She felt guilty, and as if she were somehow being adulterous, but she could not think any way to have a conversation with Severus about Ronald that didn't end in a spectacular row. So even though she knew it was the wrong choice she settled in to go to sleep without saying anything about who she had seen in town. Instead she simply snuggled into his embrace and enjoyed his gentle touch as he massaged her stomach, gently encouraging Philip to stop moving about so much so she could sleep.


	22. Chapter 22

"**Where ignorance is bliss, 'Tis folly to be wise."**

**-Thomas Gray**

* * *

"They want an interview," Hermione said distractedly while she read the letter in her hands. "Since I'm out of country, they've agreed to a floo call, and have subsequently attached our floo to the network."

"When will your interview be?" Severus asked before returning to brushing his teeth.

"In the morning," she told him as she set the letter aside and began applying toothpaste to her own toothbrush.

"Do you know who else is being interviewed?" he asked conversationally as he rinsed his own toothbrush and returned it to its home.

"No, but the wording in the letter suggested that it was a small interview pool," Hermione mumbled somewhat indiscernibly around a mouth of foam before groaning at the realization that her gums were bleeding again. "As a daughter of dentists I have to say this is my least favorite part of pregnancy."

"You can't take the anti-inflammatory potion," Severus mused as she put away her own clean toothbrush. "But getting extra vitamin C could help a bit."

Hermione's eyes softened at his thoughtfulness and she let him lead her from the bathroom into their bedroom. She had officially reached the stage where she had to sleep on her side aided by a pillow to be remotely comfortable, so it took her a bit longer than usual to settle in to bed for the night. Severus had a patience she had never seen as his pupil while she adjusted and readjusted her position until she was comfortable, only then wrapping his arm around her and snuggling in to go to sleep as well.

* * *

Severus had a crushing headache the next day, and holed up in the bedroom with his head buried under the pillows while Hermione took her interview in the living room. When trying to describe his headache for Hermione the phrase 'I can't remember the last time I had a headache like this' had come out of his mouth, but as he lay in the dark room absolutely miserable he realized that was wrong. The last time he had experienced a headache like this he had been learning the skill of legilimency from Albus Dumbledore. There was no reason for his mental shields to be flexing in anyway, but that was what it felt like to him.

Which sadly meant there was nothing he could do to alleviate it. No headache relief potion would fix the pounding ache behind his eyes he simply had to wait for his mind to adjust to the shift in his shields thus allowing the pain to fade. He let his breathing shallow out and sifted slowly through his mind attempting to find where the change was. The problem was he couldn't seem to find anything. It felt as if something were actually missing, and that the pain was resulting from a shield collapsing in on a now vacant area. Could he possibly have lost something within his own mind?

He couldn't spare it much thought while feeling such a high level of pain, so he let that thought rest in the back of his mind and he began methodically relaxing every muscle in his body. His best hope at getting rid of this headache was to sleep it off, so he used every calming technique he knew until his body began to drift. Sleep was the best thing that could happen right now.

* * *

"I brought you some soup," Hermione whispered as Severus appeared from where he had been hiding under the pillows. "I thought you should eat, but you could go back to sleep after that."

He didn't speak, his eyes still screwed up in pain, but he patted the bed beside him in a clear invitation for her to join him. Hermione climbed onto the bed carefully due to her stomach as well as the soup. Severus leaned back against the pillows and took the soup gratefully offering her a smile.

"How did your interview go?" he rasped quietly, fighting a wince at the volume of his own voice.

"Very well," Hermione said in a whisper so quiet she almost couldn't be heard. "They offered me the job."

"Did you accept?" he asked, honestly intrigued despite the headache.

"I told them I've like to take the holiday to think about it," she said quietly as she scooped up a bit of the soup and fed it to him. "They'll be expecting another floo call from me after Christmas."

Severus's eyes fluttered shut at the taste of the soup. He couldn't remember when he had even told her that his mother always made him potato soup when he didn't feel well, but clearly she knew somehow. Frankly it was the best potato soup he'd ever tasted.

"I know it isn't just like your mother made," she whispered. "But I added leaks. I hope that's okay."

"It's perfect," he hummed gently between bites.

His head was still killing him but he was content to his wife feed him soup while they lounged in their dark bedroom staying as quiet as possible. Severus let his mind wand to the similar position they had occupied on Christmas morning, though granted there hadn't been any soup involved. He smiled despite the headache while he looked at the ruby pendant hanging around her neck. Her face had lit up when she'd opened it, and seemed to be much more adored than the different candies he had stuffed her stocking with. He'd been happy to see he had gotten the idea right when he found his stocking stuffed with candy as well as a snow globe for Abbeville. She had gotten him an ancient potions text that was frankly farm more valuable than the necklace he had purchased for her.

Tonight they were supposed to be ringing in the New Year together, but Severus was in no condition for a celebration. If he had to guess the time, or how long he'd been sleeping, he'd say most of the day had gone by and it was likely not long until the New Year began. He supposed that it wouldn't be the end of the world if they rang it in quietly while cuddled up in bed.

* * *

Hermione was glad to see that her husband's headache did eventually fade away. It took a few days for him to completely return to normal, but the man staunchly refused to go see a doctor. He assured her more than once that it had to do with legilimency and that no doctor could actually fix it, but that didn't do much to make her feel better. It left her feeling unease, but she couldn't argue his logic. He knew more about legilimency than she did; he knew what was safe and what wasn't.

When he was back to full health he turned in his resignation on the farm, and left packing to Hermione while he went to scout houses in London. She was late enough in her pregnancy for both of them to be uncomfortable with her apparating there to see them herself, so she had sent Severus armed with a digital camera to look by himself.

She worked through the house methodically packing away there things while he was out again. She had absolutely hated all of the pictures from the first three houses she had sent him to look at, so he was out again today checking a few more. They still had a bit of time as she wouldn't be starting her new job for another week, but she wanted to get settled into their new home as soon as possible. She suspected it was her nesting instinct driving her forward. That was her best reasoning for how in the course of two days she had packed 90% of the house.

A knock at the door distracted her from putting more books into a box, and she quickly dusted her hands off on her skirt as she made her way over to the door. She threw it open and she was rather surprised to find Ronald Weasley standing on her front porch.

"You don't know my address," she said a bit prickly as she pulled the door closed behind her and joined him on the porch.

"I asked around town," he said with a bright smile immediately taking off his jacket and offering it to her.

She probably shouldn't have, but it was cold outside, and she certainly wasn't going to invite him in, so she put the jacket on. She awkwardly lowered herself into a sitting position on the step and tried not to be annoyed with how closely he sat next to her.

"Why are you here?" she asked him tiredly.

"I just wanted to see you," he shrugged. "How were the holidays?"

"They were good," she said a little uncomfortably as she scooted over to put a bit more distance between them. "Yours?"

"Not the same without you," he admitted making her blush.

"You can't keep coming here," Hermione pointed out while trying to put more distance between them, putting her right up against the column on the edge of the porch. "You seem to want something from me that I can't give. That I don't want to give."

"I don't want to get between you and Severus, that isn't why I'm here," he said, offering his hands up in supplication.

"Why are you here Ronald?" she asked him pointedly, crossing her arms over her now ample chest.

"I have something to tell you," he said imploringly.

"Just tell me then," Hermione groused. "You can't just keep popping in like this, it isn't okay Ronald."

"I don't know if you're ready to hear it," Ron said, speaking louder to be heard over a loud popping sound.

"I'm ready to hear it alright!" Hermione shouted at him. "Just tell me what it is you want to say Ronald and then go away!"

"Hermione?" a sharp voice questioned.

She snapped her head around and saw Severus standing on the walk staring at her with concern written all over his face.

"Severus," Hermione said, her eyes darting between Ronald and her husband. "I swear I didn't invite him over. It isn't as bad as it looks."

"It looks pretty bad Hermione," he said sliding the camera into his pocket and striding forward. "Could you explain it to me?"

"I was finishing up packing the living room and he just showed up," Hermione said in a rush. "I didn't invite him, and I was telling him to leave."

"I heard as much," he said quietly as he swept up on to the porch his billowing robes brushing Ron's face. "Could you enlighten me to who exactly you think is here?"

"You, me, and Ronald Weasley," Hermione answered with a confused quirk of the brow.

"And how long have you been seeing Ronald?" Severus asked as he sunk down onto the porch.

Hermione's world seemed to tilt on it's axis as Severus sat where Ronald had just been. Only now Ron didn't seem to be there. Her eyes roamed over the yard and she didn't see any sight of him. Her heart seemed to stop beating in her chest when she realized he had simply vanished. Her own voice echoed in her mind from a conversation she'd once had with Ginny _'all my hallucinations were always of Ronald.'_

"Oh… oh no," she choked out. "The first time I saw him was over a month ago."

Something awful rippled across his face as he looked at her but he did not speak, he seemed incapable of it.

"I ran into him in town," she finally told him. "It was odd that he'd be there, but not odd enough for me to assume it was a hallucination. I'm sorry I should have told you."

He shook his head, his eyes drifting closed in an effort to hide the pain that was so visible in them.

"Are there other symptoms?" he asked finally.

"I-I don't know for sure…" Hermione said, gripping her shaking hand tightly. "Most of the symptoms I had before are also pregnancy symptoms."

He nodded his head sharply, shaking free the tears she hadn't seen building in his eyes.

"We need to get you inside," he said after a long pause. "It's freezing out here."

Hermione reach up to touch her arms, only then realizing she didn't actually have a jacket on after all. Her skin felt cold to the touch and she wondered just how long she'd been sitting out here in the elements. Severus swept up off the porch, and delicately pulled her to her feet. He guided her inside as if she were made of glass and one wrong move would shatter her.


	23. Chapter 23

"**I believe in joy, but I believe in the flip-side, agony."**

**-Mercedes McCambridge**

* * *

"I'd rather not go into St. Mungos again," Hermione said quietly, trying to keep the tears out of her voice while she squeezed a tissue tightly in her hand. "That did such an awful job last time, it hardly seems worth it."

"You need to have a scan done somewhere," Severus pointed out in a hoarse voice, his own hand convulsing on a glass tumbler full of vodka. "And considering our impending… joy… you cannot have the scan done here in Abbeville."

Severus had been struggling to force words out since they had come in from the cold, and Hermione couldn't think of anything to make it better. It seemed that her cancer had returned, and a test to confirm it seemed more of a formality at this point. As soon as Severus had settled her in a chair, wrapped her in a thick blanket, and stoked a hearty fire he had poured himself a glass of Vodka. Not that he had consumed a drop of it yet. Instead he sat in the chair across from her and pretended that he was not crying over the idea that his pregnant wife's cancer was recurrent.

"I'll learn the spell they used, I can scan myself," Hermione suggested quietly.

"Absolutely not," he sighed brokenly, finally taking a drink from the glass in his hand. "We'll move into London tomorrow, and the first thing we'll do there is go in to have a set of scans done."

Severus left no room for brokering. He swept out of his chair, quickly tossing back the contents of his glass before striding into the kitchen. Hermione worried that he was going to fill his glass again, but she only heard the clunk of heavy glass being set on the counter before he appeared before her. He fished the camera out of his pocket and handed it over to her.

"If it were up to me, I'd pick the one with the bay windows," he ground out as tears began to fall down his cheeks again.

Then he swept out of the room leaving her with the camera and her own tears. She flicked through the pictures, hardly able to see them with her blurred vision. The houses didn't matter to her anymore. She wished that she had told Severus the first time she had seen Ron, that she hadn't wasted time. She wished that she hadn't ever seen Ron, that her cancer hadn't come back. She wished for things she couldn't have, so instead she turned the camera off and set it on the table beside her chair. She hoisted herself out of the chair and went to join Severus in their bedroom.

* * *

The house with the bay windows was beautiful, if rather empty with their boxes piled against the wall still in the miniature forms as Severus hadn't seen fit to return them to their regular size. Hermione looked around it, wondering if she would live long enough to really enjoy it. She didn't get much time to worry about it however, as Severus was quickly bustling her out of the house so they could take a cab to St. Mungos.

It had taken a lot of shouting on her husband's part to get an appointment on such short notice, but they had gotten it. Healer Michaels was waiting for them in the lobby when they arrived. His face temporarily lit up at the sight of her pregnant form but then his face visibly darkened when they remembered why they were there. He led them in to a private room just off the main room and indicated for Hermione to take a seat on the infirmary bed.

"I understand we're scanning for recurrent cancer?" he asked officially, though his face betrayed his cool demeanor. "Are you concerned due to similar symptoms as your first visit? Because the pregnancy could be causing that."

"She's been having hallucinations," Severus answered somewhat tersely. "They are similar to the ones she had when she last had a brain tumor."

"Would you like a scan specific to the brain then, or of the entire body," he asked, still looking at Hermione. "There shouldn't be an issue, but there is a small risk to the baby if I do a full body scan."

"I think we need to scan my entire body to be sure," Hermione said quietly. "But perhaps we should monitor the baby to be sure."

He nodded his acceptance, and first waved his wand intricately over her abdomen. The room was then filled with the slightly muffled sound of their son's beating heart. He then moved on to the scanning spell. He gripped her chin lightly to keep her from moving while he did his wand work. Somehow she knew there would be a display of lights above her head giving him a read out of her vitals and if there was cancer present, but she couldn't quite put her finger on how she knew that.

Since she could not move her head she focused her attention on Severus's face. She watched as his eyes narrowed at the results, and he seemed to grow more serious before he reached up and began massaging his temple. It was a rather unfortunate time for his headache to return, but perhaps they would have something here that could help him.

"What do those results mean," Severus asked when healer Michaels had released her chin.

"Let me finish the entire scan please," he said distractedly as he continued his wand work.

Hermione could see the light now, and she saw that it shifted from a red tinged light to a vividly green light. It reminded her of the light cast by the killing curse so she assumed it mean something bad. However healer Michaels seemed very pleased to see the arrival of the green light, and the smile stayed in place on his face as he scanned her entire body without the light changing color again.

"Now will you disclose the results," Severus pushed when healer Michaels lowered his wand.

"There is good news and bad," he said stepping back so he could see bother Hermione and Severus at the same time. "The good news being that it does not appear to be ovarian cancer once more. The bad news is that you do appear to have a brain tumor."

He waited for that to sink in for the both of them.

"The residual scarring around the tumor that suggests it is recurring where one was present before," he went on. "Did your ovarian cancer metastasize before it went into remission?"

Hermione nodded.

"Then technically speaking your ovarian cancer is back, but it is only present in the tumor," he said with a soft smile. "You're oncologist should be able to treat it fairly quickly."

"Is it safe for me to leave it until the end of the pregnancy?" Hermione asked quietly, unable to really wrap her mind around the idea of going to chemotherapy again.

"There is a large risk," he admitted. "But its less of a risk than the risk to the baby. It comes down to personal choice."

"I'm nearly in the third trimmest, there isn't much choice is there," Hermione pointed out somewhat scathingly, but then she lowered her voice when she saw Severus flinched. "Do you have anything to cure a migraine?"

"Are you experiencing migraines?" healer Michael asked, concern coloring his features.

"No, but Severus is," she said quietly, nodded her head in his direction.

"I'm fine," Severus said stiffly. "If there is nothing more you can do for us, we shall be on our way."

Severus quickly swept Hermione out of the room, leaving healer Michaels staring after them unsure of what to do. Severus didn't talk as he lead her back out to the street and hailed them another cab. He remained silent as they were driven through town, and as he helped her into the house. He did not speak until he had enlarged one of their chairs and directed her to sit in it.

"Hermione, this is going to sound completely asinine," Severus said as he paced back and forth. "But is there any reason that I should know how to cast the cancer scanning charm that healer just used? I mean I have never used it have I? Only I could swear that I had, and that it was for something important."

"I don't know Severus," Hermione said, wondering if it were possible that he had learned it at some point.

But then why would he have forgotten it?

* * *

Hermione decided that the best way for her to cope with everything she was feel about the idea of waiting to deal with the return of her brain tumor was to read everything she could on it. She first placed an order with a muggle book company she frequently used, but those books would take some time to come through the mail. If she had still been in France she would have placed her order with Florish and Blotts through the post as well, but now that she was in London she decided to make her purchases in person.

Severus was forced into bed by another excruciating headache, so she went into Diagon Alley on her own. She caught many stares as she walked through the crowd, only realizing as she walked that the wizarding world as a whole hadn't been told about her pregnancy. She just offered them friendly nods and continued on her way.

She went straight to the counter upon arrival at the bookstore and offered the girl a bright smile. She had already jotted down which books she wanted, and surprisingly she was not interested in browsing the store today, so she simply handed it over.

"I was hoping you had these in stock," she said with a smile.

The girl pursued the list and then looked up with a confused look on her face.

"You're Hermione Snape aren't you?" she asked.

"Yes I am," Hermione answered bemused.

"I'm sorry, did your previous order not arrive at your address in France" she asked as she pulled out the enchanted scroll Hermione knew held all of the orders.

"I haven't ordered these books before," Hermione said a look of confusion taking over her face as well.

"Well not since you've married, but yes you have," the girl said, flipping the scroll around and pointing to an order for Hermione Granger that was listed as filled. "I take it they did not arrive."

"No they must not have," Hermione said, staring at the parchment before her in confusion. "This pregnancy brain must really be getting to me. I swear I don't even remember ordering those."

"I'll fill the order free of charge," the girl said quickly. "I'm very sorry about this ma'am."

"Oh don't worry about it," Hermione said with a shrug. "I couldn't miss them if I couldn't remember ordering them."

* * *

"I'm telling you, the parchment clearly showed that I had ordered and paid for them," Hermione explained in a whisper ad she joined Severus in the bed, leaving the books sitting on the floor.

"I'm starting to think we may have been obliviated," Severus said darkly, continuing to rub his head. "It would explain a lot of things."

"I suppose it would explain the books, and maybe the headaches due to the hole punched in your mental shields," Hermione mused. "But it doesn't give us any reason for why either of us would have been obviated."

"No it doesn't," Severus relented. "But if it were done in any semblance of official capacity, you will have access to any record of it."

"You don't think the ministry would first obliviate me and then promote me to the head of the office that monitors such magic do you?" Hermione asked, her brow climbing up toward her hair. "They wouldn't be so short sighted would they?"

"They would if two different departments were involved," he said, groaning at the tenor of his own voice.

"I'll look into it first thing," she whispered. "I still think you should take a sleeping potion. It won't actually cure the headache, but you could sleep through the worst of it."

To her surprise Severus relented. He shushed her when she went to collect it for him, and instead cast a summoning charm. She took the hint that he didn't want her to get out of bed, and stayed beside him even after he had taken the potion. It was the middle of the afternoon, but she didn't want him worrying about her wandering around the house and running into one of her hallucinations. So she took one of the books in hand, and began reading _The Real Magic of Healing._


	24. Chapter 24

**A lie has speed, but truth has endurance. **

**-Edgar J. Mohn**

* * *

"I'm so glad you're back!" Ginny chirped, jostling the infant holstered to her chest as she bounced on her toes. "And look at you, fit to burst!"

"Don't be mean," Hermione retorted with a false pout. "I'm not _that_ big."

"How far along are you now?" Harry asked as he reached out to take James out of the Moby Wrap.

"Twenty-seven weeks," Hermione said with a soft smile as she fought the urge to reach out for the baby. "Only another thirteen weeks. Poor Severus still has to suffer."

"Where is he anyway?" Harry asked as he ambled forward.

Hermione beamed when Harry handed over James without even being asked. She took the little bundle into her arms and immediately began to rock him, momentarily forgetting that anyone else was in the room with her.

"Earth to Hermione…." Ginny said with a chuckle.

Hermione snapped her eyes up, disturbed to see Ron standing behind his sister. She shook her head attempting to dispel the hallucination. She plastered a rather fake smile back on her face and attempted to act normal.

"Sorry, babies are like crack for me," she said with an airy laugh. "Severus is hiding upstairs. I think he's setting up the crib."

"You've started the nursery?" Ginny asked, immediately turning as if she were going to go upstairs.

"Don't," Hermione said quickly, thankful that her attempt to walk forward had disrupted the hallucination of Ron. "Severus isn't really up for company today."

"Is he ever?" Harry asked with a smirk.

"Not if you're one of the guests," Hermione laughed, perhaps too loudly as the baby began to grisly and then burst into tears.

Ginny swept forward to snatch the baby up into her arms, and immediately began bouncing on the balls of her feet as she shushed her son. Hermione was glad to see the baby out of her arms when she felt the muscles in her arms begin to tremble. At first she couldn't place why the feeling was familiar, but then a memory of Severus talking to her while she lay in bed, telling her about a seizure she had drifted to the front of her mind and she became nervous. Unless she wanted to demonstrate that she wasn't quite well anymore, she needed to get the Potter's out of her house.

"To be honest, I don't know if I am up for guests today either," she said, dropping her eyes to the floor. "I'm awfully tired, and I'd really like to lie down if it wouldn't trouble you to come back another time."

"Oh… sure," Harry said quickly his changing quickly to hide his concern. "It sounds like James could use a nap anyway. Floo us when you're feeling a bit more lively?"

"Of course," Hermione promised, sliding her hand under her thigh when she felt the fingers begin to twitch uncontrollably. "I'll floo you soon."

"Okay," Ginny said distractedly as she tried to coax a fussing James back into the Moby Wrap. "We'll see you soon."

Harry and Ginny made their way somewhat noisily out the front door, and Hermione delicately laid herself sideways along the couch as the convulsions progressed from her hands up to her shoulders.

"Severus," she called out, her voice wobbling a bit as the shaking grew worse. "Could you come here please?"

Hermione was lost to speech then as the convulsions grew worse. Severus had been walking casually down the stairs, unsure of if he would be greeted by the Potters or not, but when he heard the grunt link sounds coming from the living room he took the stairs a little quicker. His heart lurched in his chest when he rounded the corner into the living room and saw Hermione in the throes of a seizure on the couch. He raced across the room, intent on making sure she did not fall off the couch and injury herself or their son, but her seizure ended before he got there. Her body went limp as he fell to her knees before her.

"Can you open your eyes," he asked gently over her pained groan.

Hermione's eyes fluttered open, but she immediately shut them once more, groaning again as she reached a week arm up to press her fingers to her temple.

"My head hurts," she whispered, tears leaking from behind her closed lids.

"I know it does," Severus crooned softly, running his fingers through her hair in an effort to sooth her. "I need to look you over though. Make sure you and the baby are okay."

Hermione forced her eyes open again at the mention of their son but he could see how much it cost her. Tears streamed unchecked down her face as she followed his moving finger. He checked that her pupils were equal and reactive, and then he moved on to casting diagnostic spells, allowing Hermione to gratefully close her eyes. Severus released a sigh of relief when his tests came back with mostly positive.

"Okay," he said gently as he eased her up of the couch, casting a lightening charm on her so he could easily lift her into his arms. "Everything seems to be working properly, but we should get you a pain potion for the headache and a hot bath might help with the rest of it."

"Let's just agree I'll never have one of those again," Hermione mumbled quietly.

Severus huffed and airy laugh as he pulled her just a bit tighter into his arms and hurried up the stairs.

"Yes, let's," he sighed.

* * *

Hermione wasn't entirely sure it was safe for her to be at work, but she was desperate to know what reason there would be for someone to obliviate both her and Severus. Of course she couldn't guarantee that the person or persons who had done it even worked for the ministry, but she had to start somewhere.

So here she was, dressed in her light blue ministry robes, signing the papers that would officially put her in charge of the squad of oblivators. All of them were present for the morning meeting that would be held as soon as she was finished, and she couldn't help but look at each of them with a suspicious eye. She met the gaze of her former partner Ernie Macmillan and wondered if it had been his wand that had stolen her memories.

A few swipes of the pen, and official registration of her wand with the ministry and she was once again employed. She waited until the ministry official responsible for her paperwork left the office, and then she turned her attention to the small squad that now worked for her. There were six of them, and she knew all except for one.

"Ernie, Harold, Sara, Hannah, Michael," she said with a brief nod of the head. "I don't believe I have met you however."

"I'm Beverly Mitchell," the young girl said. "I go by Bev. I was hired just over a year ago."

Hermione nodded again, understanding that this young girl had replaced her when she left.

"Your jobs won't change much with a change of leadership," Hermione said in her most professional voice. "Responses will still be handled as they have always been, the biggest change I wish to initiate at this point is to enforce a policy of more descriptive paper work after any incident. I remember the files being appallingly vague when I worked here, and I plan to rectify that immediately. Once things have settled a bit I would like to have an evaluation with each of you, but that won't happen for a couple weeks at least."

Six heads nodded their understanding and remained silent waiting for Hermione to continue.

"Today I will be reviewing the files that have already been submitted on old cases, you will be notified if a more in-depth record is required from you," Hermione went on. "In your offices you will find an example of what I expect incident reports to look like in the future, please review them unless you have already been summoned for a clean-up."

They nodded once more and then the group of them filed out of the room leaving Hermione on her own. With a flick of her wand, her own office door swung shut and a light ward was erected to let her know if anyone was approaching. She turned her back on the door and focused her attention on the row of filing cabinets along the back wall. She sighed with annoyance that the limitations of magic causing electricity to fritz. How much simpler would it be if she could just access a computer database!

She rolled her shoulders and began her search. She read the labels to each drawer on the first cabinet, only to discover that apparently the filing system had been changed since she left. They no longer filed by either the first or the last name of the person involved with the incident. Instead everything appeared to be filed based on the issue that had caused the obliviation in the first place. She suppressed a scream of frustration at the unbelievable situation she found herself in. She was going to have to look through every single file as she had absolutely no idea what had led to their memories being stolen.

She opened the first drawer and began reading flipping through the files on muggle endangerment, unable to call up any scenario where she or Severus would endanger a muggle but also unable to prove that she hadn't simply forgotten a situation where she had. She grabbed the first few folders and took them to her desk so she could begin combing through the files looking for her name.

* * *

"I want to help paint," Hermione pouted, but she remained seated in the rocking chair Severus had relegated her too.

"You picked the color," he offered with a smile. "I don't want to risk you falling if you were to have another seizure. At twenty-nine weeks there is a high chance our son could live if he was born early, but I'd prefer not to risk it."

"Maybe I should just go see a muggle doctor and have the brain tumor removed now," Hermione said quietly, fiddling with her robes for something to do. "Maybe that would take away some of the risk for Philip."

"And maybe it would put you at a higher risk," Severus countered, continuing to move his blue roller over the wall, though his strokes became jerky. "I don't have it in me to make a decision between the two of you, please don't put me in that position."

"I would never," Hermione gasped, her own heart twisting at the very idea.

"Do you understand how easily it could end up there if you went in for surgery?" he said, turning his back on the painting to stare at her with a pained expression. "What if you started to bleed out on the table again? What do I say when the doctor wants to know who is most important to save?"

"I understand what you're saying Severus, I swear that I do," Hermione said breathily, struggling to keep speaking at the sight of her husband breaking down before her. "But we take the same risk everytime I walk across the room. I could have another seizure or pass out. And that isn't even considering the possibility of the cancer spreading."

"There isn't a right answer," a familiar voice said, drawing Hermione's attention to the corner of the room.

She sighed when she saw that Ron was here again. He was sitting on a stool she knew hadn't been present moments ago, and he looked for all the world as if he were about to ask her for a spot of tea. She rolled her eyes at him and turned her attention back to Severus who looked even more concerned than he had before.

"Is he here?" he asked in a strangled voice.

"Yes, he's sitting in the corner," Hermione admitted with a sigh. "He was just informing me that there isn't a good choice in this situation."

"Your mind has a distorted idea of Weasley's intelligence," Severus scathed, and Hermione knew he wasn't upset with her. "That is correct however. No matter what choice we make may turn out well or turn out horribly. I am at a loss."

"As am I," Hermione sighed. "I guess the best choice for now, is for me to watch you paint, and keep pretending Ron isn't sitting in the corner until he disappears."

"I'd rather we just left the room and Ron behind for the night," Severus said in an exhausted tone as he set down the roller and charmed the lid back onto the can of paint.

He left everything else where it lay as he offered his arm up for Hermione as she stood from the rocking chair. Severus looked dangerously close to losing control of his emotions so she wouldn't begrudge him a quiet evening together if he was asking for it. So the painting would have to wait for now, and the fre place would have the full attention of the somewhat less than happy couple for the duration of the evening.

* * *

It was well past when Hermione had intended to start evaluations with her staff, but she hadn't yet made it through all of the files in her office. She had enlisted the help of Miranda, her assistant, to start re-filing everything she had already gone through, this time by the last name of the person involved with the incident. Miranda was under the impression that Hermione was reading each file to check the thoroughness of the paperwork before handing each case over to be filed, so she was not at all suspicious about her bosses interested in such mundane paperwork.

New files were being added to the new filing system as well, as her staff had been kept busy with scattered incidents out in the country side. It appeared that nearly all of them had been silly pranks or slip ups from young wizards, but paperwork still had to be filed when muggles had been made to forget what they had witnessed. Hermione gave them cursory glances so she could keep up appearances that she was evaluating the work closely, but other than a quick skimming she paid them little mind.

It wasn't until she reached the very last drawer, which required her wand being scanned to even be opened that she found her name. Her heart took off at a sprint in her chest when she saw that she and Severus were filed in the drawer for confidential memory wipes. She was frustrated to discover that while she had clearance to open the drawer, she apparently did not have the clearance to read the document as it only had a header above a blank page.

_Hermione Jean Snape- fully obliviated._

_Severus Tobias Snape- partially obliviated due to occlumency shields_.

The document didn't give her much more information, other than having a stamp at the bottom denoting that whoever had cast the spell worked for the department of mysteries. Whatever it was they were supposed to have done had been a massive security risk to require the involvement of an unspeakable. She still had no idea what they had done, but she had hope of discovering what it was now that she knew Severus hadn't been completely obliviated.

"No wonder he's had headaches," she muttered to herself.

"What Mrs. Snape?" Miranda said, turning her back on the filing cabinets to give Hermione her full attention.

"I was just saying that these files give me a headache," Hermione lied quickly. "This last drawer will have to stay filed as it is, for security purposes."

"Yes ma'am," Miranda nodded quickly.

"Could you finish up here while I start my evaluations with my team?" she asked, though she would have much rather simply gone home for the day and spoke with Severus.

"Yes of course," Miranda said checking her watch. "I was just going to grab lunch, but I can finish the rest before I go home for the day."

"That sounds great," Hermione said offering her a smile. "I should be in Bev and Ernie's office if you need me."


	25. Chapter 25

**Real glory springs from the silent conquest of ourselves. **

**- Joseph P. Thompson**

* * *

Severus was holed up in the would-be nursery, completely ignoring the fact that the walls needed finishing, and the changing table had yet to be put together. Instead, he was sitting in the rocking chair in complete darkness, plumbing the recesses of his mind. He'd begun to have a splitting headache ages ago, but he continued to search for the seam. He knew it would be there somewhere, and if he could find it he could tear it open and see what was hidden behind it.

The door creaked open, but to his relief the light in the hall had already been extinguished. With his hearing as sensitive as it was he could hear her padding gently into the room, and tried not to wince at the sound of sock brushing carpet.

"I think you should stop for the night," she whispered. "I know you won't want to talk because of the headache, but I'd prefer your silent company to Ron's rather chatty company."

Severus would have groaned at that if he didn't think it would split his head in two. Her hallucinations were growing worse, and that was the reason he wanted to keep working at this. Yet it was the reason she needed him to stop, at least for the night.

"I brought a headache potion," Hermione coaxed quietly. "I'll even massage your scalp if you come to bed with me."

"You needn't beg," he whispered hoarsely as he drug himself out of the rocking chair. "I won't leave you to be tormented by Ronald Weasley."

"Tonight he seems to be set on talking about Quidditch," Hermione said with a light airy laugh. "I have years of practice learning to tune that out."

Severus wrapped his arm around her shoulder and allowed her to lead him to their bedroom with his eyes clamped shut against the pulsing headache. He knew where she had gotten the headache potion from, and it was laced with dreamless sleep, so he did not want to take it until he was lying down in their bed. He had brewed that particular potion after her first seizure since moving to England and he hadn't anticipated needing to use it himself.

* * *

"Hey Hermione," Harry said cheerfully as he poked his head into her office. "Do you want to eat lunch together? The cafeteria has scalloped potatoes today."

"Are you really still obsessed with scalloped potatoes?" Hermione chuckled, keeping her eyes locked firmly on Harry's so they would not wander to the hallucination of Ronald standing behind him.

"How could I not be," he laughed. "They're delicious."

"I suppose I could go for scalloped potatoes," Hermione shrugged, shuffling out from behind her desktop join him.

Harry gave her a beaming smile when she pressed her hand to her lower back, and knew that he wanted to say something about how much bigger she had gotten since he had seen her three weeks ago. She had to laugh at that, imagining that he had gotten a terribly hormonal reaction from Ginny for saying something along those lines to her.

"Yes, I'm bigger," she laughed as she joined him out in the hallway and started to waddle down the hall alongside him. "I imagine over the course of the next ten weeks I will get even bigger."

"You still look beautiful," he said somewhat awkwardly, but with a continued smile.

Hermione tried to ignore the way that Ronald glowered at Harry as she chuckled.

"Oh don't worry, I haven't had any concerns about size," Hermione told him easily. "I spent too long looking like a half dead skeleton to be upset about gaining weight."

"Well, you know what's good for weight gain don't you?" Harry asked while rubbing his somewhat rounded belly jokingly.

"Scalloped potatoes," the both laughed at the same time.

Hermione laughed more heartily when a passing walked right through the apparition of Ron, dispersing him. She felt a weight lift from her chest when Ronald was no longer walking with them. Harry slid his arm around her shoulder like old times as the two of them slid into one of the lifts with a crowd of other's heading down to lunch.

Her amusement with the familiarity was short lived when she felt a tremor roll through her shoulders. She tried to play it off like nothing had happened, but she felt Harry immediately angle himself toward her. She attempted to offer him a smile, but a second tremor rolled through her causing both of her arms to jerk before she could clench her fists and control the movement.

"You know I've completely forgotten, I was supposed to have lunch at home with Severus," Hermione said hurriedly as she shuffled out from under Harry's arm and out of the lift when the door opened. "Rain check on those potatoes?"

"Uh sure," Harry said, hurrying out of the lift behind her much to her consternation. "I'll walk you to the floo."

Hermione tucked her hands into the pockets of her robes to hide the that they were spasming uncontrollably now. Harry kept pace with her despite the fact that she was as close to jogging as she could manage with her size and the somewhat crowded hallway.

"Hermione, what's happening?" Harry whispered as he stepped forward to block the flow of traffic so she would have first dibs on the floo in front of them.

She looked at him, prepared to spit out a lie, but his face was so contorted with concern that she couldn't seem to find the words to deceive him. Instead she pulled on of her trembling hands out of her robe and showed it to him as she stepped into the fireplace.

"I'm about to have a seizure," she whispered back. "I need to get home."

Harry's brows both flew up into his hair as he grabbed a handful of floo powder from the pot on the wall. He surprised her by stepping into the fireplace with her before dropping the lot of it at their feet. He wrapped his arm protectively around her, pulling her closer to him in an effort to keep her from falling as he waited for her to announce their destination. Hermione said it quickly, and she was glad for his presence when they started to spin away and her arms were trembling too much for her to tuck them into her body safely on her own. He held the down with his own while they whipped past grate after grate.

They arrived at her house quickly, and the pair of them staggered awkwardly out of the grate with Harry struggling to keep her held against him as the seizure began to really take hold of her. She had her eyes open long enough to see that Severus had been sitting on the floor scratching notes out on parchment that was spread out in front of him before she clenched her eyes shut trying to suppress the groan that was forcing it's way out of her as the muscles in her chest.

"Jesus what do I do?" she heard Harry asking as her knees buckled on her and the only thing keeping her from falling on the floor was his tenuous grip on her flailing body.

"Help me lay her on her side," she heard Severus say distantly over the roaring that had started in her ears. "No not there, she'll hurt herself on the flag stones."

Both men could only guess as to if Hermione could even hear them talking as they settled her on the ground. Severus made her as comfortable as he could on their living room carpet, sliding a pillow from under the couch under her head to keep her from slamming it onto the floor. Harry stood off to the side once she had been laid own, watching in abject horror as he very pregnant body flailed helplessly on the floor. He was horribly reminded of what she had looked like when under the point of Ron's wand and it brought tears to his eyes but he fought to keep them from falling.

After what seemed like a lifetime to him her body fell still. Harry watched as Severus tore his gaze away from his watch and immediately reached out to press his fingers to Hermione's jugular. Harry was worried that she wasn't moving at all now, but some of the concern had bleed out of Severus's face as he took stock of his wife's vitals and that reassured Harry.

"How long had she been seizing before you arrived?" Severus asked quietly as he pushed her hair back so he could see her face.

"I'm not sure," he admitted. "A couple seconds? It started while we were in the lift, but the worst of it didn't start until we were in the floo."

"So the entire episode was less than sixty seconds," Severus said, nodding to himself before turning his full attention on Hermione and starting to whisper so lowly Harry nearly couldn't hear him. "I need you to open your eyes sweetheart. I know it hurts, I'll be quick."

Harry watch helplessly from off to the side as Severus made Hermione follow his finger back and forth before lighting the tip of his wand and shining it in her eyes. He had never seen his former teacher look as kind and loving as he did when he brushed his thumb over his friends cheek as he told her she could close her eyes. He then began casting spells that Harry did not even recognize over Hermione quickly reading the results that were being presented to him in the form of different colored runes hovering just above her body.

"Blood pressure is in the tank, but everything else looks fine. Philip is a little agitated, but healthy," Severus said in that same quiet whisper that meant he was talking to Hermione. "I don't want you going back to work today so there is no hurry to get up off the floor if you aren't ready."

"Harry saw," she ground out, eyes still firmly closed, and Harry realized she had no idea he was still here.

"He isn't going to say anything," Severus said soothingly, gently running his hands through her hair until the lines of worry fell from her face.

"What happened," Harry asked quietly, his voice surprisingly hoarse. "Why is she having seizures?"

"Her cancer has returned," Severus said in a feral voice, looking at Harry as if he hated him. "And we can't do anything about it because of the interfering ministry!"

"What?" Harry gasped unable to process what he had heard.

"Did you remember something?' Hermione rasped, sounding somewhat confused.

"Not enough," he moaned turning away from Harry to hide the way he was breaking. "I was able to recall enough to know that we had he cure. We had it in our hands, and now I can't seem to find it within my mind."

"What," Harry repeated again, his head feeling light as he tried to process everything they were saying.

"Hermione found the cure for cancer," Severus said, on his feet and rounding on Harry with rage in his eyes in less than a second. "She sent her research off to the ministry, and suddenly we had an unspeakable in our home, accusing us of violating the statute of secrecy, and obliviating us."

"What," Harry repeated, landing roughly on the floor when his legs gave out beneath him. "They wouldn't. they couldn't just let her die like that."

"They don't care about one person's life, don't be niave," Severus scathed. "Now our only hope is for me to pull these memories out from where they've been buried beneath my occlumency shields. And believe me I will find them if it's the last thing I do. I will not stand by and watch my wife die!"

"Severus," Hermione said quietly, her eyes open once more, but pain clear on her face. "Please don't yell, it wasn't Harry who did it."

"Maybe not," Severus retorted, dropping his voice several notches. "But he is the poster boy for the ministry, that has to say something."

Harry tugged at his own hair as he thought about what he had just heard. Hermione was sick again? How were they managing to function while their baby was at risk, and Hermione's life was at risk? Why would an unspeakable have been sent to them? Was there anything he could do to help them?

"Do you know who the unspeakable was?" Harry asked in a hoarse whisper.

"The man never gave his name," Severus explained. "But he had a trainee with him. It was Rita Skeeter."

Harry's blood boiled at the name, and if he hadn't been motivated to raise hell when he returned to work he was now. Rita Skeeter was not going to hurt Hermione again, and not in such a lethal way. He'd go straight to Kingsley and he wouldn't leave until he had his way. There was no way to un-wipe their memories, but Harry might be able to get his hands on their research. The unspeakable surely would have collected it and filed it away in the department of mysteries.

"I'll have his name by the end of the day, if not more than that," Harry said as he pulled himself up to his feet. "I'll make sure your office is covered Hermione. I hope you feel better soon."

Harry took a bit of their floo powder and climbed back into the fire place, quickly announcing his intended destination and disappearing.

* * *

"Tell me again," Hermione whispered into the darkness.

They were laying together in bed. The sun had gone down hours ago, but Hermione had awoken once the headache potions had worn off and she had been full of questions. Severus would not allow her to sit up or move about much, but was doing his best to keep her happy by answering any question she asked.

"I found the sieve sometime this morning," he repeated. "Some memories were fully intact such as the night they came into our home, and your face when you told me you had finally found the cure. The others are blurry or missing. I've written down what I've been able to work out. I don't have the full answer, but I know there is a spell and a potion involved. The only memory I can pull up of casting a spell however is of myself casting the spell that reveals whether or not a patient has cancer, I was casting it on a rat."

"That feels as if it is familiar, or as if it should be," Hermione said quietly. "Like a vague sense of dejavu. I can't make anything clear, but I feel like I know something about that rat."

"Her name was Bertha," Severus said distractedly.

"Yes, that is familiar too," Hermione said before groaning. "This is so frustrating. Why can't I just remember?"

"You've been obliviated," Severus shushed her, running his hand soothingly down her back. "Let me do the work of trying to remember things."

"I hate this," Hermione admitted in a broken voice. "I'm so afraid."

"I am not going to allow anything bad to happen to you," Severus swore, wrapping his arms protectively around her. "I am going to find the answers, and I am going to fix this. I promise you."


	26. Chapter 26

**Real freedom lies in wildness, not in civilization.**

**-Charles Lindbergh**

* * *

Kingsley was seated in his office, quietly reading the memo that had been sent to him by the daily prophet. His office was quiet, and his tea was left unattended on the edge of his desk waiting for his attention. It was a quiet morning by any standard, and he was enjoying it immensely.

The quiet was stolen rather quickly when his door flew open and slammed against his wall cracking the plaster. The memo crinkled in his hand and his gripped it tightly in his surprise and snapped his head up to see who was so rudely invading his office. He was rather surprised to see a livid Harry Potter storming into the office and throwing the door shut with just as much force before striding forward to slam his hands down on the desk and lean forward removing most of the space that had been between their faces. Kingsley discreetly drew his wand beneath the desk.

"Explain to me why a memory wipe was approve on Mr. and Mrs. Snape," Harry shouted at that. "An obliviation that is likely going to lead to Hermione Snape's death if it isn't reversed!"

"I didn't approve anything of the sort," Kingsley said defensively. "A delicate situation was presented to me, and I approved the discontinuation of research that is all."

"Exactly what situation was presented to you?" Harry asked, his anger growing more heated if anything.

"The party responsible for funding Hermione's research discovered that she had inadvertently created something of great risk to the magical community, and because of that I approved the termination of the project," Kingsley said diplomatically.

"Do not play political with me Shacklebolt!" Harry shouted. "You hold this office because I have stood by an allowed it. But if you intend to kill my oldest friend, I assure you I will be minister within the year to reverse your decision!"

"I am not playing Politian," Kingsley retorted, his own hackles rising at the threat. "What you're asking me about is highly classified."

"I do not care, tell me or start hunting for a new job," Harry yelled, his eyes practically bugging out of his head. "Don't think for a moment you stand a chance with the public if the Chosen One wants your job!"

"Hermione created something that could end all of wizarding kind," Kingsley admitted quietly.

"How on earth could a cure for cancer end our world?" Harry raged.

"She used some sort of medicine that involved altering the way a person's cells vibrate," Kingsley nearly whispered. "It was pointed out to me that while one could alter the cells to make them vibrate on a level that refuted cancer, they could also be changed to make them vibrate less. It could make them work like the cells of our muggle counterparts. She could take magic away from wizards."

"Who pointed that out to you?" Harry asked, some of the anger disappearing with his shock. "Who would be idiotic enough to think Hermione would do something like that?"

"Lucius Malfoy," Kingsley admitted darkly. "But don't think Hermione was seen as the threat. Her research could not be allowed to see the light of day though. It is too much of a risk."

"But why obliviate her?" Harry said, shouting once more. "You've removed the cure for cancer from her mind, just as she has had a resurgence of her own cancer. It is slowly killing her, and she cannot seek muggle treatment without risking the life of her unborn child."

"Surely it isn't a cure then if the cancer has returned," Kingsley breathed. "If it doesn't cure cancer the only thing it does do, is the reason it must be buried."

"She never got the chance to use her cure!" Harry shouted. "Like a good little worker, she turned in her research, and it was stripped from her, as well as her memories of what she had done, and now she is dying!"

"Andrew Vega was the unspeakable tied to her case," the minister admitted finally. "You should speak to him about why he overrode orders and obliviated the Snapes."

Harry rounded quickly stormed from the office without looking back. The department of mysteries was about to be as noisy as the minister's office had just been, and Harry could care less about anyone opinion on the matter.

* * *

"When did we buy this book?" Hermione asked as the pair of them unpacked the last of their library.

"Let me see," Severus said somewhat distractedly, reaching for the book in her hand while still placing books on the shelf before him.

He looked away and focused on the book in his hand, his brow contracting when he did not recognize it.

"Did you buy it when you replaced the ones that were taken?" Severus asked, looking up to meet her eyes once more.

"No I didn't," Hermione shrugged. "I looked at the publisher, and I think that's a muggle book."

"Why would we have a book on vibrational medicine?" Severus asked. "What is vibrational medicine/"

"I don't know, but I intend to find out," Hermione said, an old hungry look return to her eyes as she took the book back. "I'll be in the kitchen.'

Severus knew better than to try and stop her when she was focused in such a way, but he couldn't help but think it might be a better idea for him to read the book. The title hadn't jogged any memories, but if the book were actually related to the cure she had found, surely reading the book would help him dig up the memories that were still stubbornly hidden. He resigned to start trying to dig under his shields once more while he waited for her to finish with the book so he could look at it himself. He would likely have to wait until the morning when she went into work.

* * *

Hermione was rather surprised to find Rita Skeeter's old photographer and a reporter she did not recognize standing outside of her office when she arrived the next morning. As she saw Ronald standing with them she opted not to look at them at all. Thus when the camera flash went off, no matter where the image would end up, it would only be of her profile, and she doubted her photographed self was planning on looking toward the camera.

"Mrs. Snape!" the reporter said loudly. "Is it true your cancer has returned? Are you unable to seek treatment because of your child?"

"Where did you hear that?" she asked, her had automatically going to her stomach to protect her son from the reporter.

"The ministry is in an uproar." The reporter answered. "Harry Potter stormed the minister's office yesterday, and his shouting was overheard by support staff. He indicated that your research on the cure for your disease had been suspended, and you obliviated."

"You may want to watch what you print in your paper," Hermione said tersely as she pushed her office door open. "I imagine your career won't last very long if you start printing highly classified information in your paper."

"So you admit you were obliviated and the ministry is trying to cover it up?" the reporter asked, his face lighting up with delight at his potential front cover story.

"I said nothing of the sort," Hermione sad with a frown before disappearing into her office and snapping the door shut.

She had a pretty good idea of what the morning paper would say, and a tiny piece of her was interested to see how that played out. She began shucking her outer robes, contemplating if she should send Miranda for a bit of tea. Her heart nearly stopped in her chest when she turned around to find Harry perched on the edge of her desk, his eyes burning with anger. It help that Ronald was suddenly sitting beside him, rather than standing outside with the reporter. He looked just as angry and Harry and it reminded her of the old days.

"Before you speak," Hermione said as she carefully lifted a hand to stop him. "Just to clear things up. You're the only one sitting on my desk right?"

"Yes," Harry answered in confusion.

"I couldn't be sure if it was hallucination or not, as I had just seen Ron in the hall," Hermione shrugged as she waddled over to her desk and slid tiredly into her seat. "So why so angry so early in the day."

"I've been to the Department of Mysteries," Harry said stiffly. "I was investigating why you were obliviated against orders and I discovered something disturbing."

"Against orders?' Hermione asked in confusion. "And what did you find out?"

"Agent Vega, the unspeakable on your case has no memory of obliviating either of you," Harry said through clenched teeth. "He has a memory of arriving with his partner, and collecting your research but that is all."

"Have you gotten the chance to question Skeeter?" Hermione asked conversationally.

"She was conveniently absent from work yesterday afternoon, and I have not yet gone down to their offices again today," Harry said as he reached into his robes and pulled out a battered notebook. "I thought it rather important that I get this to you first. I'm sorry that I couldn't get the books as well. It was difficult enough to smuggle this out."

"I already purchased the books again," Hermione said distractedly as she reached for the notebook she knew she should recognize. "Florish and Blotts had a record of what I had already purchased."

"Of course they would miss removing those records," Harry spat angrily. "As it was never the plan to obliviate either of you, only to require your silence on what you had discovered."

"I don't understand, why would Vega go against orders?" Hermione questioned.

"I intend to have Skeeter brought before the disciplanry committee to investigate it," Harry sneered. "But I suspect she had him under the imperius curse. She had an old grudge with you, and I'm sure she loved the idea of taking something so important from you after you essentially took her job from her. Or at least she would see it as you taking her job from her."

Hermione was no longer listening to Harry as she began thumbing through the journal in her hand. It was full of her writing. Everything was here. How she had discovered the differences between muggles and wizards, how she had worked out a way to alter the cells, how to brew the needed potion. Her hear soared to have the cure to her disease in her hand once more, but it immediately plummeted when the crux of the matter began to sink in.

"This is very good, I am so glad you were able to nick this," Hermione said with a smile that was quickly becoming watery as her eyes teared up. "I still have to wait until Philip comes to do anything about it though."

"Why?" Harry asked caught somewhere between anger and horror.

"Because of the potion I developed," she sighed. "It stops cellular alteration. I can't take that while my son's cells are changing by the minute."


	27. Chapter 27

**I don't avoid confrontation, people should know that.**

**-David Coverdale**

* * *

Severus sat on the thick rug before the fire, flipping through Hermione's journal, while she lay on her side using is legs as a pillow. There was no other light in the room save for the fire, as Severus was hoping to help alleviate the headache brought on by his wife's most recent seizure. He had only recently calmed from his newest bout of fear for her and for their child, but now that she was resting and Philip seemed to be fine he allowed his back to relax just slightly. Hermione had staunchly refused to be put to bed, so he had given her the headache relief potion right there on the living floor and allowed her to pillow her head on his legs while he read by the firelight.

He was desperate to find some way around the situation they now found themselves in. He couldn't even begin to fathom how he felt about the idea that they now held the solution in their hands, and yet they still could not do a thing about it. He wasn't sure he could take another nine weeks of watching his wife's health deteriorate, not to mention the risk to their son's health with every slip of her health.

No matter how many times he looked through her notes though, he couldn't find a way around the potion. Every test she had done using spell work alone had failed, and there didn't seem to be a way around the use of potion. The cells needed to be frozen into stasis before the alterations were implemented, but they could not take the risk of stopping development in their son. It was terrifying to think that even with this book back in their possession he might still lose them both.

"Will you add another log to the fire," Hermione whispered alerting him to the fact that she was awake, and apparently cold.

"How are you feeling?" Severus asked quietly as he levitated another log into the fire.

"I'm still so tired," she admitted as she wrapped one of her arms around his legs. "But I feel a little better. I think Philip is feeling better as well. He's moving about like crazy."

"Perhaps he's a little restless," Severus said as he set her journal aside and reached down to rest his hand on her stomach.

He loved to feel his son move about, and tonight was no different. It was a reassurance that he was doing well, a silent promise that he intended to survive. Severus and Hermione both cherished each peaceful moment like this that they could experience.

* * *

Hermione felt rather pitiful heading into work the next morning. She'd have rather stayed home and perhaps taken a warm bath to ease the pain in her lower back, but Harry had scheduled a meeting between her, Kingsley, and himself so she didn't have much choice in the matter. She was also a bit irritated to note that she felt nauseous. She had thought, with it being the very beginning of her 32nd week, that she wouldn't have to contend with vomiting anymore but apparently she had been wrong.

So, ignoring her own preference, she had pulled on her ministry robes that had been charmed to expand with her ever growing body and she had drug herself into the floo. Severus had watched her go with n ever present furrow in his brow but he hadn't tried to stop her from going. So here she was, sitting in her office waiting for the two men to come to her while sipping at a cup of ginger tea hoping that she was not going to be sick right there at her desk.

There was a gentle knock, and before she could say anything in response the door had swung open revealing not only Harry and Kingsley but a nervous looking Rita Skeeter. Hermione gripped her desk tightly to keep from betraying any sort of reaction to the despicable woman she found walking into her office. Harry seemed to be fuming just under the surface, and that lead Hermione to assume he did not want Skeeter hear but had been forced to acquiesce to the minister's wishes.

"To what do I owe the pleasure," Hermione said stiffly as she conjured a third chair before her desk.

"Miss Skeeter wished to speak her peace," Kingsley said somewhat stiffly. "I thought it prudent to allow her a chance to defend herself against certain accusations."

"You know I make no accusations," Hermione sniffed, leaning back in her seat but gripping the arms of her chair more tightly than she had the desk. "As you well know I have no memory of the transgressions made against me, and thus would serve as a very poor witness in such a case."

"Your husband and friends make claims," Skeeter spat dangerously. "It is only fair I be allowed to speak up."

"Very well," Hermione said through clenched teeth that she couldn't be sure were caused by her growing anger, or perhaps the roiling nausea in her stomach. "Say what it is you wish to say."

"I am guilty of having imperiused Andrew Vega," Skeeter said, leaning forward in her chair as if to implore Hermione. "But I did so under duress."

"How so," Hermione asked as if she were asking about the weather, quickly clamping her lips shut when she felt bile rise up in her throat.

"My life was threatened by Lucius Malfoy," Skeeter said quickly. "He swore he would kill me if I did not remove the threat your research presented in the most thorough way possible."

Hermione felt very unwell t that thought, but she couldn't help but focus on her own turning stomach and the growing ache in her lower back. She was wished more fervently that she had just stayed home that morning.

"That is a very serious claim," Kingsley pointed out as he crossed his arms over his chest and stared down at Skeeter.

"It is an honest one!" Skeeter nearly shouted.

"Is it?" Hermione asked, unsure of who she should consider a bigger evil between the two villains presented to her.

"Yes!" Skeeter said fervently.

"Do you swear by it?" Hermione asked leadingly her eyes drifting to Harry who had better authority in such a situation than she.

"Of course," Skeeter confirmed as Harry nodded his head confirming that he understood what Hermione wanted.

"Then you should have no issue testifying to just that under the influence of veritaserum," Harry said pointedly, flourish his wand in the air and conjuring a bit of purple parchment for an interdepartmental memo. "Shall we schedule your official interview for later this afternoon?"

"I-," Skeeter hesitated. "I mean to say, that is a bit extreme don't you think?"

"No, I do not," Harry said plainly already presenting the paper for her signature.

"Minister surely you do not support my submission to such a situation," Skeeter pleaded. "I am being treated like a common criminal."

"You wished to have a proper interview with Mrs. Snape over her claims," Kingsley pointed out. "Surely Mr. Malfoy deserves the same level of respect against the claims you make."

"You did not submit this woman to veritaserum!" she screeched.

Hermione winced at the nail on chalkboard sound of her voice and closed her eyes as tightly as her mouth as she fought not to lose her breakfast on her desk. She wanted nothing more than for all of them to leave her office so she could discreetly vomit in the waste basket and perhaps rub her lower back, but she had no such luck with the growing confrontation.

"The claims made in her case are substantially smaller than the claims you yourself make," Kinglsey explained. "If you object to the use of a truth serum, you could instead be questioned be a legillimens."

"Yes, I choose that," Skeeter agreed immediately, causing Hermione to assume she was an occlumens.

"Very well," the minister nodded. "Pease arrange for a legillimens to come in this afternoon Harry. The interview will take place in the antechamber of the court room."

"Yes sir," Harry said with a mischievous glint in his eye.

Skeeter and Kingsley left the office quickly, but Harry lingered behind. He looked Hermione over with concerned eyes but he did not address he health. Instead a somewhat dark smile overcame his face as he leaned forward to share a secret with her.

"Isn't it a shame that she didn't think her choices through very well," Harry said with a smirk. "There is only one living legillimens in all of Brittan."

"Severus," Hermione whispered, a smirk climbing onto her features as well.

* * *

Hermione had not wished to be present for the questioning of one of her oldest foes, and so Severus had given her a brief hug before leaving her in her office and heading down to the bowels of the ministry. He hadn't liked the light sheen of sweat he had seen building on her forehead but she had assured him that she was fine and sent him on his way.

He couldn't help but feel a bit of malice as he swept down into the antechamber that housed Rita Skeeter. The woman would be wishing she had taken veritaserum when he was done with her. Even with Potter he had taken care not to intentionally inflict pain as he rifled through his mind, but he had no such intentions with Skeeter. She had very nearly stolen his wife from him, and he was going to make her feel a fraction of the pain she had caused them if not the whole extent of it.

He was pleased to see the color drain out of the woman's face when she saw him glide into the room in his full sweeping black robes. He took gleeful pleasure in the way her eyes flickered from him to the minister, her mouth flapping like a fish on dry land as she searched for words.

"You cannot be serious," she finally spat out. "My accuser is to interrogate me? Surely that's a conflict of interest!"

"You requested legilimency over veritaserum," Kingsley answered evenly. "Severus is the only legillimens I the country, and thus will have to be your interviewer."

"There must be another option," Skeeter protested.

"If you wish to take the truth serum, but all means do so," Severus sneered knowing she would not agree to do that no matter how much she didn't want him rooting around in her mind.

"Fine, dig through my mind if you must," she sniffed. "Don't expect me not to challenge the validity of anything you claim to see if this ever ends up in court."

"Ah but Rita, I have no qualms about taking veritaserum myself to validate that I speak only the truth about whatever I might see," he said snidely as she swept forward.

Without further warning he slid into her mind, taking advantage of her surprise to slip past the first barrier of her mind. He knew immediately that she had rough training at occlumency as he began to be bombarded with mundane memories that were surely meant to distract him. He ruthlessly tore through them, giving little care to the muffled whimper he heard her make.

He followed her fleeing mind only to encounter her second barricade. Her mind seemed at first to have gone silent, as if she had not a thought in her head, but then he became aware of what was almost a humming and he knew he was close to pushing through to where her most delicate memories were housed. He focused all of his mind on the task, ignoring the way his own head began to ache as he pushed against the invisible wall that was holding him back.

There was a rushing sensation as her resistance gave and he feel into her most private memories. His stomach turned as he saw glimpses of her attempting to seduce Lucius, mingling with memories of him rather forcefully asserting his opinion on Hermione and her research as well as his old and tired opinion of muggleborns. If her claims of coercion were true he would have found some sort of fear at these memories, but in its place he found only arousal.

Pushing further he hit upon her memories of the two of them plotting together to remove the threat of his wife. He couldn't tell from her memories, but he had a fairly good idea what Lucius Malfoy's motivations were. He could however tell that Skeeter was motivated by hatred and spite. He could feel how she wanted to destroy the woman she felt was responsible for her fall from the public eye and the wealth that came with her writing. He saw her memories of lobbying for the department of mysteries to do something about the supposed violation of Hermione's research, and her despicable glee upon her success. When he hit upon her triumph at watching the pair of them be obliviated he forcefully withdrew from the witches mind and only just kept himself from spitting upon her.

"She's been lying," Severus said in a deceptively calm voice as he crossed to stand near the wall and put as much distance between himself and the woman he so wished to throttle. "She was working with Lucius not for him, and there is no doubt that she wished harm to befall Hermione Snape."

He only just managed to refrain from used such biased language as _my wife_, but he kept his face neutral as he met Kingsley's gaze.

"She's been out for revenge since she revealed herself as an animagus to slide out from the weight Hermione had place upon her by threatening to reveal that she was transforming illegally," Severus said, opting to be completely honest about Hermione's own part in an effort to remain as neutral as possible. "Neither she nor Lucius are innocent in this event, though agent Vega seems to have only been following protocol up to the point where an unforgivable was used upon him. That being said his effectiveness might need to be evaluated if he was so easily influenced by this sorry excuse for a human being."

"Thank you Severus," Kingsley said pointedly when his reporting turned into name calling. "You shall be called upon to testify about what you've seen as I can assure you this will be going to trial. For now however you are free to go."

Severus spared on glance for the woman who sat crying in her chair, with a tiny bit of blood trickling from her nose, and then he swept out of the room. His own head was aching, but all he really wanted to do was check in with his wife. He hoped to convince her to go home for the afternoon. Frankly he'd rather she stayed home until their son was born, just to be safe, but she was a stubborn woman.

* * *

"Miranda," Hermione called as she hoisted herself up out of her desk chair and reached for her travelling cloak.

"Yes ma'am," Miranda said perkily, poking her head in from her adjoining, though somewhat smaller, office.

"I seem to have come down with some sort of stomach bug," Hermione sighed. "I'm going home for the day; please cancel any appointments on my schedule."

"Of course," Miranda said quickly a kind yet concerned smile on her face. "Is there anything else you need?"

"I was expecting my husband to stop by after concluding his business here at the ministry," Hermione explained as she swung her cloak into place on her shoulders, wincing a bit at her stiff muscles. "Will you inform him of my departure, but assure him that he need not worry?"

"Yes ma'am," Miranda agreed with a brighter smile. "I could send out to have soup sent to your house as well if you like."

"Thank you dear, but I think I'll pass," Hermione said suppressing the urge to chuckle. "I think a bit of a lie-in is all I need."

Without further conversation Hermione waddled her way out of her office and off toward the lifts. Her only hope was that she would get home before she lost control of her unruly stomach. She had the nagging suspicion that she wasn't going to vomit after all, but that her afternoon was going to be equally unpleasant. If she was lucky whatever was causing her impending gastric episode would pass before Severus came home and grew steadily more concerned about her.

* * *

Severus was climbing into the lift with a fuming Harry Potter one step behind him when the pair of them nearly ran straight into Lucius Malfoy. Severus saw Harry's hackles rise immediately but paid him little attention as he scanned the area ascertaining that it was just the three of them present before he grabbed a fist full of his one-time friend's robes and thrust him forcefully back into the lift. He vaguely registered Harry instructing the lift to stop between floors to give them a bit of privacy over the rushing of blood he could hear behind his ears.

"You slimy bastard," he huffed, throwing Lucius back from him, and smiling slightly when the man stumbled dropping his ever present cane to the floor. "What do you think you're playing at, interfering with my wife's research?"

"I was the one funding that bloody research, I'll have you know," Lucius said icily as he straightened his robes and gathered his composure. "The idea was to help restore my own reputation, but a fat lot of good that did when your wife decided to mess with the natural order."

"She did nothing of the sort," Severus spat.

"Spare me the histrionics Severus," Lucius said as if he were speaking to a child. "You don't expect me to believe it is coincidence that a muggleborns who lost both her parents in the war, and was subsequently married to an apparently abusive pureblooded wizard has no bone to pick? I don't believe for a second she did not intentionally develop a way to strip wizards of their magic! It is only a happy coincidence that her witchcraft might also cure the disease with which she is afflicted."

"Why do you think her spell or potion have anything to do with taking a person's magic from them?' Harry asked hotly while Severus battled his own temper.

"Because she has discovered a way to alter the very fiber of our being," Lucius shot back coolly. "She could change you or I to a muggle just as quickly as she could turn and muggle into a wizard. It is blasphemy."

"Wizards are born not made," Severus said tersely.

"So says you, but you're wife's discovery begs to differ," Lucius pointed out. "Surely you must see the inherent danger in letting her research see the light of day?"

"You paranoia knows no bounds," Severus spat. "You would let my wife die a painful death to protect yourself against a nonexistent threat. Let go of you pureblooded ideology and all of the insanity that comes with it! The war has been over for years, why don't you start acting like it?"

"This isn't about the war," Lucius said hotly as spots of color began to appear on his cheeks.

"No it isn't is it?" Harry said thoughtfully. "This is about the fear you felt when Hermione's work made you realize something you never wanted to know."

"Oh do enlighten me," Lucius drawled sardonically.

"By realizing that cells as so easily transfigured from one level to another," Harry said thoughtfully. "You've been forced to see that wizards and muggles are not so different. The fact that only a slight mutation separates you from the people you attempted genocide on absolutely terrifies you."

"Do not be absurd," Lucius scathed.

"He's right," Severus mused, seeing his old friend in a new light. "You're out of your mind with fear. Do me a favor Lucius, keep your fear as well as your influence away from my family. So help me if I catch you in another plot to hurt my wife you will find yourself at the end of my wand, and as someone who once served beside me as a death eater you know what danger that spells for you."

Harry quickly reengaged the lift when he realized that an actual fight might break out. To his surprise the two men remained stoic and silent as the lift carried them up to the floor where both Harry and Hermione's offices were located. Lucius hid his fear well, but it was present in how quickly he disembarked the lift and walked off toward the atrium without sparing a look back.

Severus gave Harry a slight inclination of the head, before he too departed. He imagined Harry would go back to his office and get back to work, but his attention was focused on collecting his wife from her office and taking her home.

He was surprised however to see that her office was closed when he arrive. He gently pushed the door open, hoping he wouldn't be interrupting an important meeting, only to find that the lights were out inside and Hermione was not present.

"Hello," he called out when he saw that the adjoining office was still open with its lights on.

The young girl with short blonde hair who worked for his wife appeared in the doorway with a bright smile on her face.

"Mr. Snape," she said with a slight dipping of her head that surprised him. "Mrs. Snape said to inform you that she was feeling a bit under the weather and returned home for the duration of the day. She said to be sure I assured you there was nothing to worry about, but she had simply contracted a slight stomach bug. She's been gone for about an hour now, and I imagine she's rather enjoying the lie-in she was intending to capitalize upon right about now."

"Thank you," she said somewhat awkwardly as he spun on his heal and swept out of the office.

He pulled the door closed behind him as he headed off toward the atrium. Perhaps it was the day he had here at the ministry, but something didn't feel quite right about Hermione leaving by herself when feeling unwell. It sounded just like her to say he shouldn't worry, but it only made him worry more that she was apparently ill and all by her lonesome. He didn't want her to have a stomach bug, but he hoped it was that and nothing worse. Horrible possibilities ran through his mind as he approached the open floo of what could happen if she had a seizure while home alone.


	28. Chapter 28

"**The body says what words cannot."**

**- Martha Graham**

* * *

Hermione had intended to have a lie-in when she got home, but found herself rather restless and unable to sit still when she finally got there. The nausea had mostly passed, and though her back was still hurting quite a bit, she decided that a bit of cleaning would help her feel better. Severus had finished painting in the nursery, and putting the changing table together but he had left all of his supplies lying about. Now seemed as good a time as any to clear everything up.

It was while she was attempting to pick up a lingering paint tray that she noticed just how painful her back had become. What had been an irritation seemed to be developing into a painful muscle spasm. If it weren't for the fact that her seizures had never been precipitated by immense pain she would have thought she was about to have another. It was possible she supposed that this was going to be an episode of a different sort, but no other changes seemed to be happening so she continued to straighten up the room.

She hummed to herself, working quietly until the room was clean and welcoming. All that was left was for her to take the can of unused paint down to be stored in the mudroom with the other various and sundry things that weren't fit for being left about the house. She took it in hand, silently rejoicing in the fat that her nausea seemed to have passed completely, as she began to descend the stairs. She moved slowly, not wanting to risk falling down the stairs in her pregnant state, but soon enough she was standing on the wood floor of the foyer.

There was a wet splash on the wood, and she immediately looked to the paint can as the culprit. Her assumption that she had somehow spilled the paint was dissolved when she felt wetness on her skin. She looked down to see that her robes were darkening to a deep blue as they grew damp and she was now standing in a puddle.

Her heart took off at a sprint in her chest when it dawned on her that her water had broken One hand went immediately to her stomach as if that act alone would allow her to hold her son in. She couldn't recall from any of her reading if there was a high chance of survival if the mother went into labor in week 32, but she knew that the chances would have been much better in just a few weeks.

She stifled a tiny moan of dismay at the thought of the risks involved, and wished desperately tat Severus was here with her now. As calmly as she could she lowered the can of paint to the ground and drew her wand from within her robes. She had every intention of sending a patronus off to Severus to inform him of what was happening, but when she stepped forward to walk into the living room she slipped in the puddle of her own amniotic fluid. The world seemed to slow down to a point of confusion as she fell backward, her arms flailing in an attempt to catch herself on the banister. It was too slow, and yet far too quickly her body had impacted with the floor and her head with stairs.

Lights were flashing behind her eyes as she fought to remain conscious. She was no focused enough to focus on a happy memory, but she attempted to cast the patronus charm anyway. Another pained moan slipped from between her lips when she saw that only a mist had issued from her wand before disappearing entirely.

"No, no, no," she muttered to herself as she cradled her head with her hands as the darkness crept up on her.

* * *

Severus stepped out of the fireplace, glancing around the empty living room as he brushed the soot from his robes. He thought at first the house seemed oddly quietly, but then he heard it. Just outside of the room, so soft that it almost missed his notice.

"No, no, no," Hermione moaned, lurching Severus into action.

He practically flew out of the living room, skidding across the waxed wooden floor of the foyer before he came to a stop in front of her prone form. Her eyes had just fluttered closed when he crashed to his knees beside her. His fingers went instinctually to her jugular, feeling for a pulse long before he noticed wetness seeping into the knee of his pant leg.

The world seemed to slow down as the pieces fell into place for him. His wife was going into labor eight weeks too early, and seemed to have slipped at the base of the stairs hitting her head on the way down. He gingerly felt around her scalp, wincing when his hands came away wet with her blood. He quickly assessed what he could of her health and deemed that all things considered she wasn't too badly off. He gently shifted her away from the stairs so she was lying flat on her back before he began healing her head injury.

"Enervate," he cast quickly when the last trace of the head wound had disappeared.

Hermione's eye lid fluttered momentarily before opening. For a moment they were full of confusion, but then the scrunched into a grimace as a moan slipped from between her lips. His hands went immediately to each side of her head, feeling for a wound he had missed, but her hands went to her abdomen cradling their child.

"I need a healer," she groaned through clenched teeth. "I've no clue how I missed it, but I think I've been have contractions for most the morning."

"I'm not sure I should move you just yet," Severus said in the calmest voice he could manage when her hand shot out and latched onto his forearm with more force than he thought her capable of. "Let's wait until this contraction has subsided."

"It's too soon Severus!" she ground out, working her jaw even as a light sheen of sweat broke out on her forehead.

"Only time will tell," he said hoping to soothe her, no matter how his own nerves were fraying. "Just breathe."

Rather belatedly Severus was realizing he did not know enough about childbirth. He kept his face neutral so his panic would not be obvious, and he held her shaking hands as she rode out the wave of pain that had trapped her. Forever and yet quite quickly her hands went still and she released a deep sigh that told him the contraction had ended.

He moved quickly then, sweeping her up halfway in his arms as he helped her to gain her feet. As soon as she was vertical he cast a lightening charm upon her and scooped her up into his arms. The last thing they needed was for her to fall again, and he was much more sure on his feet considering that he could actually see them. When her arms had wound around his neck to hold herself in place he began to move. He had never covered the distance between the stairs and the floo so quickly.

* * *

"I want healer Michaels present," Hermione snapped, slowly losing her composure as the contractions grew closer together.

"He isn't a delivery healer," healer Wheeler pointed out.

"I don't care," she shouted, her grip convulsing painfully on Severus's hand. "He is my healer and I want him here to oversee things."

"I can call for him if you wish," Wheeler said reluctantly. "But it is likely he will get in the way, and we've got enough to be going on with as you are already fully effaced."

"This is a high risk delivery," she ground out through clenched teeth. "So forgive me if I want to have a more competent healer present in case of emergency."

"Hermione," Severus said quietly, seeing the way the healers face contorted with barely controlled offense.

"No Severus," Hermione growled, loosening her grip on his hand as the pain ebbed. "This woman misdiagnosed late stage cancer as a pregnancy I do not trust her judgment!"

"You are clearly pregnant this time, and I have quite a bit of delivery experience to be going on with," Wheeler said tersely.

"We are more than happy to have you deliver our son," Severus said diplomatically. "But we are more familiar with Healer Michaels and would like to have him present please."

Perhaps it was the sight of the surly man saying please that finally overrode the healer's offense, but she did finally slip out of the room the retrieve the requested personnel. There were a few brief quiet moments between the married couple in her absence before the next contraction started. By the time the pair of healers had returned Hermione was in the throes of her most painful contraction yet and tears were streaming unchecked down her cheeks.

* * *

Time had begun to move in strange dollops for the pair of them, but it went untracked as the weather the storm of emotion and Hermione's rolling waves of pain. Hour passed, and the found themselves in the same room being coached on by the pair of healers as if this were some sort of sporting event. To the credit of the analogy, Severus couldn't help but notice that Hermione did look as if she had been running for a long time. Her hair was slicked with sweat and plastered to her forehead in a way that made it nearly impossible to tell that she had curls.

Her cheeks were red and stained from the many tears that had fallen, and she looked exhausted. He was proud of her though, he had heard many a horror story of women turning into monsters in the delivery room, but other than a few sharp word towards Wheeler in her request for Michaels Hermione had been surprisingly civil. Some of her speech had been labored but she hadn't cursed or begged or done anything that indicated the level of pain she was in other than her firm grip on his hand and the tears the fell down her cheeks.

Severus had changed very little since their arrival other than to shed many of his layers until he sat beside her in only his black slacks and white button down shirt. After one flailing grab from Hermione that had nearly scalped him he had also pulled his long black hair back with a secure fastening charm, and he now looked nothing like the intimidating potions master he had once been. He suspected that all of the fingers in his left hand had been broken by now, but he continued to let Hermione squeeze it while he crooned words of encouragement in her ear and attempted to keep her unruly hair out of her face.

Then sun had long since set when Wheeler settled at the foot of the bed to once again check the progress of the delivery. She lifted the sheet that exposed Hermione and made a cursory glance, but this time she did not immediately return the sheet and abandon her post. Instead she reached out a hand toward Michaels who provided her with a pair of gloves that she quickly donned before wheeling her stool bit closer to the bed.

"Alright mama," she said with a bright encouraging smile. "It's time to really push."

"What was I doing before then," Hermione sighed tiredly as she leaned herself forward and focused her features to face the coming task.

"Warming up," Wheeler said with a slight laugh, which thankfully elicited an airy chuckle from Hermione. "But now your baby is ready, and a few good pushes should bring the head out."

Severus bit down against his lip to keep from making a sound as he grip became impossibly tighter. The first real groans of pain fell from his wife's lips as she tried to push their son out. He couldn't even imagine what she must have been feeling as he tears grew audible and painful to the ears.

"Ooooooh Philip," she moaned as her body fought to deliver their son. "You are so grounded."

"Ah, there," Wheeler said, just as Hermione slumped, her muscles slackening as some pressure was released. "Come on mama, another big push, you can do it."

Hermione wailed as she brought her body upright once more and gave an almighty push. Severus latched his right hand onto the frame of the bed and channeled his own pain into the metal while she clenched his left. There were several seconds of what felt like chaos as Hermione nearly screamed, her body rigid with effort, and then suddenly the sound died out. She was huffing tiredly as she leaned back against the bed, but Severus found his focus latched onto Wheeler who had quickly pulled a messy bundle of wriggly limbs from between his wife's legs. There was one beat of silence while he stared his blood covered son and then the unmistakable wail of an infant filled the air.

"He's got a good set of lungs," Wheeler said with a smile as she quickly snipped the chord connecting infant to mother, and stepped over to the small bed against the wall where she began attending to their baby.

"You hear that," Severus said soothingly as he used his sleeve to wipe sweat from Hermione's brow. "Healthy lungs."

The pair of them listened, surprisingly comforted by the sound of their son wailing. He was partially obscured by the working healers, but from what they could see he was a bit small. Small, but appeared to have all of the necessary parts. His color seemed good, and there were no grim looks upon the faces of their healers.

"Here we go," Wheeler said softly as she returned to the bedside, their son now clean and wrapped in a warm blanket. "He'll be needed a bit of fattening up, but everything appears to be in working order."

Hermione's tears were renewed when their son was placed into her arms. She wept happy tears as she cradled him against her chest and clucked her tongue in a soothing gesture until his own wailing fell silent. All to quickly Philip's thumb had found its way into his mouth and his eyes had drifted closed. Severus watched on in astonishment as their son fell asleep in his mother's arms. He could hardly have dared to hope that the catastrophe that had been Hermione going into early labor and injuring herself against the stairs in their home could turn out so perfectly. It was eight weeks early, but their son was hear, and other than needing to gain weight he did not seem to be suffering any medical ailments. Severus felt ready to weep himself.


	29. Chapter 29

_**A/N: I always try to respond to my reviews, particularly if they make good points or ask interesting questions, which is why I hate it when someone responds as a guess with such a review and I can't write them back. One of them caught my attention enough that I am actually going to respond here. So Guest: I respect your opinion, but I do think you should do a bit more reading. While it does not always turn out well for a baby to be born at 32 weeks, I feel your statement is off base. The baby begins breathing inside the womb at this time, which means that while in most cases the lungs are not fully developed it is possible for the child to be born with functioning lungs. Not to mention that there are many documented cases of babies being born healthy at 32 weeks (believe it or not I actually do my research before writing these sorts of things), so while it isn't the normal is absolutely possible. I hope you continue to enjoy the story, but if you disagree with my research so thoroughly I understand. (That was probably a lot more blunt or aggressive than it would have be if I could have just written to you in a message, I am discovering as I write this just how aggravating I find anonymous reviews…. Seriously considering blocking that)**_

* * *

"**Happiness is nothing more than good health and a bad memory." **

**-Albert Schweitzer**

* * *

Severus would have absolutely denied it if anyone were to ask, but he rejoiced in the moment that Hermione began to grow tired and she looked to him with the intent of handing over their son so she might rest. His recently healed hand itched to be wrapped around his son. His world tunneled in to a fine point, and everything revolved around the controlled movements that brought the tiny sleeping bundle into his arms. Philip was far too light, but there was no denying that he was a beautiful infant.

Fate thankfully had given him his mother's nose, but even with so little of it present he could see that he had his father's hair. In the coloring at least, it was too short to be certain, but he suspected the fluffiness was just the beginning of curls that would rival Hermione's. His eyes were closed so Severus could not be sure, but he was rather sure he had caught glimpse of dark brown eyes. He could not keep the smile from his face, nor could he deny that his son was beautiful.

With no one to watch, he felt no shame when a single tear leaked out of his eye. Things where early, and unexpected, but undeniably perfect. His son was safely born, his wife was suffering no lingering damage from the accident this afternoon, and now they were free to tackle her cancer without endangering their son. He could not wait to get the both of them home so he could take care of them.

* * *

Hermione had hoped with everything going as smoothly as it had that she'd be home by the next morning. There was not much chance of that when they made the uncomfortable discovery that Philip was a reluctantly eater. She was surprised to see healer Wheeler using such a muggle approach to medicine when she snaked a feeding up Philip's nose and down into his stomach. He just barely weighed four pounds, and they couldn't very well take him home when he was so small.

So they were patient. Hermione stayed in St. Mungos for another day while he own body healed. She probably could have left as soon as they had finished casting the charms that caused her body to heal itself, but she needed rest so she stayed. She rested, and Severus never left her side nor did Philip. His bassinet was kept in their room right next to the bed so they could keep a watchful eye on their son while he was being feed a concoction of vitamins, nutrients, and a weight gain potion.

By the next day she had been released to return home, and Philip had been moved up to the nursery with the other new born babies. She was no longer a patient at St. Mungos, but that in no way meant that either her or Severus were leaving the hospital. They took turns holding him when he wasn't being poked and prodded by the doctors, just as they took turns either sleeping in the chair beside his bassinet or pacing back and forth.

By the third day the potions seemed to be working quickly. Philip had almost broken five pounds, and his feeding tube had been removed in hopes of switching him over to bottle feeding. If his thumb sucking was any indication Philip had already mastered the motion of sucking, it was swallowing that Philip seemed to struggle with. Hermione wanted to start breast feeding, but until Philip weight a bit more the doctors wanted to keep giving him a weight gain potion with his milk, so they tried to start him on a bottle. Philip wasn't having it. He'd suck on the bottle as if it were his thumb, but he would simply allow the mixture to dribble down his chin. Both parents were torn between frustration and fear.

* * *

It was a stressful and tear-filled two weeks, but at the end of it you could hardly tell that Philip had been born premature. On the day that they were allowed to take him home he weighed six and a half pounds, and had finally come around to the concept of eating on his own. Hermione had wept great wracking tears when he had finally breast fed while Severus cradled the pair of them.

After a short trip home to collect it, Severus carefully buckled Philip into his car seat and kept on hand firmly locked around the handle and the other wrapped around Hermione's shoulder as they finally left St. Mungos. It was their least used form of travel, but they flagged down a muggle cab and paid for a ride back to their home.

Hermione was startled, but happily surprised to see Harry and Ginny sitting on their front porch. She wondered why little James wasn't with them as she as Severus excited the cab. The pair of them stood from where they were seated on the stone steps and hurried down to meet the happy parents.

"Where is James?" Hermione asked at the same time that Severus said, "What are you doing here?"

"James is with my mother," Ginny said with a smile.

"And we're here to look after Philip while you take care of Hermione," Harry explain while maintaining firm eye contact with Severus.

"We weren't sure how long it would take to brew the potion and to cast the spells," Ginny explained as she reached for the handle of Philip's car seat. "But we didn't think you should waste any time. Both for Hermione's health, and because we run the risk of one of the unspeakables noticing that journal has gone missing and coming looking for it."

"You have a valid point," Hermione said quietly as she looked up to meet her husband's gaze. "Should we do this now?"

"There's no time like the present," Severus relented, allowing Ginny to take Philip from his grasp though it was plain he didn't like it. "He's sleeping now, hopefully you can manage to keep it like that for the next couple of hours while I work."

Hermione saw Ginny bite back a retort, and she was glad that it did not come. She knew it wasn't easy for Ginny to be around Severus after his final year at Hogwarts, no matter the fact that he was forced to do the things that he did, and Hermione was gratefully for any of her efforts to be civil. Ginny offered a somewhat pained smile to Severus as she took Philip's car seat in hand, and tilted to the side to allow Severus passage so he might remove the wards from the door.

It was as if Severus suddenly remembered how fragile he thought his wife to be, and he immediately ushered her into bed before disappearing into the basement with her journal in hand. The potion was of Hermione's creation, but there was no denying that Severus had better instincts with a cauldron. He could likely brew the potion in half the time and have it be twice as effective.

"How long do you think it will take to heal you?" Harry asked quietly, sitting beside her bed while Ginny was in the other room transferring Philip from his carrier to his bassinet.

"Well, if everything goes according to plan the tumor should disappear within an hour of the potion being taken and the spell being cast," Hermione said with a gentle shrug. "There is a chance however that it will take more than one application of the spell, as the tumor has had so much time to grow."

"How do you know when it's gone?" Harry asked, his brows knitting together.

"Well obviously we'll check it using a diagnostic spell," Hermione chuckled lightly. "But of course it will be obviously it has gone when there is no recurrence of seizures or hallucinations."

"So the spell will tell you immediately?" Harry pushed on. "You won't have to wait through days of observation or anything like that?"

"No, in essence we will know before the night is out," Hermione assure him. "But Severus and I will be tracking any changes in the coming days to be sure it doesn't come back."

"I read that journal, you're spells are very good," Harry said, rubbing his chin. "I have faith it won't come back."

"That's just it though isn't it," Hermione sighed tiredly. "The spell will work, the potion will work. My work could do so much good, and the ministry is just burying it. I don't understand why!"

"I thought I told you about Malfoy…" harry said delicately, and it was clear that he was worried about her memory.

"No, I know that," she sighed. "I mean why would anyone listen to his pureblooded dogma? Why would I ever try to eradicate magic?"

"Lucius Malfoy might think you capable of it," Harry sighed. "But the rest of the ministry people involved are more concerned about with what other people might do with the information. It is a potential risk, no matter the value of the knowledge."

"There has to be some other way," Hermione grumbled as she gripped her pillow in frustration. "There has to be some way to introduce the cure so muggleborns don't suffer without putting the rest of the magical community at risk."

"If anyone can think of a way it'll be you Hermione," Harry said, his ears immediately perking up when a shrill baby cry rent the air. "I'll go help Ginny with Philip, you should rest while you can."

* * *

Severus emerged from the basement two hours later armed with a steaming glass of potion and Hermione's journal. The house was so quiet he thought they were home alone, but when he passed the nursery he saw that both Potters were still present and thoroughly absorbed in entertaining his son with dancing lights they were creating with their wands. When he entered the bedroom he saw that Hermione's lack of sound came from the fact that she had fallen asleep.

"Wake up Hermione," he said gently as he set his supplies on the bedside table and gently shook her into awareness.

"What time is it?" she sighed tiredly as she rubbed at her eyes.

"It's just passed seven," he told her. "It's time."

"Are you nervous," she whispered. "I'm nervous."

"We know it works, we have proof of how effective it is right in this journal," He assured her. "And I'm going to be here every step of the way."

"Just like you promised," Hermione said with a smile, twining her fingers with his as she sat up against the headboard.

"Just like I promised," he repeated as he passed her the glass of potion with his free hand.

He massaged her knuckles as she knocked back the glass with a grimace on her face. He could practically see the thoughts flitting through her eyes as she wished she had done something to the potion to make it taste good. He couldn't help the slight smirk on his face as he drew his wand and began moving it over her. Silver runes began to hover over her slowly shifting until they locked in in a pattern that told him all movement and growth within her cells had stopped.

"Are you ready?" he asked her then, looking up to meet her serene gaze.

"Yes," she sighed, clearly feeling lethargic as her body ground to a halt.

He began to weave his wand in an intricate pattern over her head, continuously whispering the incantation that Hermione had created. He kept his voice even and stead, continuing the natural cadence that made the spell sound song-like even when her eyes drifted closed and she slumped deeper into the pillows.

He was worried about her when her breathing seemed to grow shallow, but her notes indicated that he had to repeat the spell several more times before he stopped. He couldn't risk causing extensive damage to her mind due to his worry about whatever seemed to be going on with her lungs. He fought against his roaring instincts and continued to cast the spell over her.

Time seemed to be moving far too slowly as the movement in her chest slowed to the point that it was early nonexistent, but he finally murmured the incantation one last time. There was a beat of silence where she wasn't breathing at all, and fear pounded through his veins, but then she drew a deep ragged breath and her eyes shot open.

"How do you feel?" he asked her in a surprisingly labored voice.

"I have a splitting headache," she admitted. "But I am not sure if that's a bad sign or a good one. I mean I did have a headache after having the tumor surgically removed."

"The journal indicates I should wait an hour before casting the first spell to check the progress," Severus said quietly, gently massaging her scalp in an effort to sooth her headache. "Is it necessary for you to be awake when I cast the spells?"

"No," she said after some thought. "I don't think I need to be. I'd have made a note in the journal if it was necessary."

"Then I think you should take the last of the headache relief potion and sleep for a while," he said decisively, jumping up from where he was seated on the edge of the bed. "I'll be right back after I grab the potion and send the Potters home."

Hermione watched him leave through squinted eyes. She wasn't sure if sending the Harry and Ginny away when he was so distracted was such a good idea, but if she was going to be sleeping the entire time it wasn't such a far-fetched idea that Severus could watch Philip while he worked. She worked her fingers into her hair and began massaging her scalp in the way Severus had been just moments ago.


	30. Chapter 30

"**Many men can make a fortune but very few can build a family." **

**-J. S. Bryan**

* * *

"Ginny said that Molly and Arthur would really like to meet Philip," Hermione said conversationally as she bottle fed their son.

She hated to bottle feed him, but for the next few days she had to be careful. With the potion lingering in her system, she couldn't risk passing it on to their son.

"I'd rather not go to the Burrow," Severus said mild annoyance as he set the morning paper aside.

"I had assumed I would end up going on my own," Hermione said with a brief nod. "I just wanted to make sure it was okay with you."

"That depends, how are you feeling today?" he asked, his eyes locking onto hers in a meaningful way almost instantly.

"I feel great," she beamed. "It still feels so strange to be cancer free without all the suffering this time, but I am ever so grateful."

"I'm still wrapping my mind around it," Severus admitted quietly as he reached out to tuck her hair behind her ear. "I hope you won' worry over me casting the diagnostic charms again over the next few days."

"Do you want to cast it again before I leave," she asked with a cheeky smile. "I'm sure Philip will enjoy the bright green light."

"I would," he nodded, drawing his wand.

He cast the spell silently, watching in fascination as the green runes that told him his wife was healthy and safe appeared in the air above her head. His attention was held by the beautiful light for a moment, but then their son stretched his arm out attempting to touch the light and his attention was locked on that flailing arm. Of it's own accord his wand arm dropped and he reached out with his other hand to caress that tiny little fist.

"I need to make a trip into Diagon Alley this afternoon anyway," Severus murmured while he played with their son. "Do you want me to pick anything up?"

"We need more nappies," Hermione said with a chuckle. "And books never go amiss."

* * *

Hermione was hesitant to floo with their son when he was only a couple weeks old, and she certainly wouldn't apparate with him when he was so young and fragile. So even though it took much longer than she would have liked, she took a cab all the way out to Ottery St. Catchpole. The log ride gave her time to seriously consider the idea that she and Severus should buy a car of their own. It would be a safe way to travel with Philip, but it was a very muggle form of travel and she wasn't sure Severus would like that. He seemed to straddle the two worlds fairly well, but there was no denying that he was a powerful wizard who loved his magic. Would he even want a car?

Those thoughts drifted from her mind as she paid the cab driver, and unbuckled Philip's carrier and pulled it with her as she exited the car. He was sleeping peacefully, so he made no fuss about being transferred out of the warmth of the car to the somewhat windy late march air. The cab drove away as she entered the yard of the Burrow.

"Hermione," Molly said in a cheerful voice that didn't match her concerned features. "We weren't expecting you today."

"I'm sorry, I should have called first," Hermione said awkwardly as she hoisted the carrier in front of her stomach in a defensive gesture. "I can come back later."

"No, you're always welcome here," Molly said with a smile. "It's just—"

Hermione could no longer hear what Molly was saying as her eyes focused in on a familiar mop of red hair. Ron was backing out of the broom shed, pulling a wheelbarrow full of potting soil with him. Her throat went dry and she was torn between sadness and outright panic. Was she hallucinating again? Was it possible that Severus's spells had not been done properly this morning? Just then Ron seemed to notice that he was being watched and he turned his head to look at her. For the first time she could remember his face contorted with pain when he looked at her, and her lungs froze in the act of breathing.

"I didn't know you were coming," he said in a pained voice. "I would have made arrangements not to be here."

"Ron why don't you nip upstairs?" Molly suggested, and Hermione breathed a heavy sigh of relief at the realization that Molly saw him too. "We won't stray past the kitchen and then the two of you won't be in the same room."

"No it's okay," Hermione shrugged. "Things are different now. We can be in the same room."

"Do you trust me?" Ron asked delicately brushing his hands off on his pants.

"I may not fully trust you around me, but I trust that you would never hurt a child," Hermione said tightly. "Besides this is your home I won't chase you out of it because I showed up unannounced."

"Well if that's settled then," Molly said somewhat awkwardly. "Let's get inside. I want to hold that baby."

Hermione allowed Molly to take the carrier from her arms and followed her into the inviting warmth of the kitchen. Arthur looked up from his morning paper when they entered, worried eyes traveling between Hermione and Ron, but he said nothing after a quick shake of the head from Molly.

"You hardly look like you just had a child," Arthur said with a smile as he set the paper aside and left room for Molly to put the baby carrier on the table. "Has it really only been three weeks?"

"Apparently almost all of the weight I gained was Philip," Hermione shrugged. "It helps that I've had so much energy that doing a bit of exercise when I get the chance isn't all that hard."

"Well you look good," Arthur said with a nod before his eyes wandered to the now awake baby his wife had taken into her arms.

Hermione's eyes wandered to Ron where he was standing awkwardly near the counter watching the interaction between his mother and his ex-wife's son. He looked sad, and somehow broken, and though she knew she could never love him again, she did ache for him. It must hurt him so to see that while she had been unwilling to give him a son, she hadn't had much compunction about giving one to Severus Snape.

"He has your nose," Ron said after a long time, looking up to meet her watery gaze.

"Severus was ever so grateful for that," Hermione said in a huff of forced laughter. "I'm just glad his hair doesn't seem to be nearly as frizzy as mine."

"He's beautiful," Molly chirped cheerfully. "And Philip is a perfect name. He actually looks like a Philip."

"Did you know, Severus wanted to name him Tiberion?" Hermione said, laughing in earnest this time. "Imagine what he might have looked like if he'd done all of his growing with us calling him that. He'd probably look like a caveman."

* * *

Severus hadn't been entirely honest about his intentions for the day. Yes he was going into Diagon Alley, but it wasn't really to shop. He had a lunch date with Lucius Malfoy. He felt as if he was stepping into a snake den, but he couldn't leave things as they were. So before he could do the shopping for Hermione he ducked into The Sleepy Dragon. He wasn't at all surprised to see that Lucius had shown up early and was already waiting for him in a corner booth.

"Ah Severus," Lucius said grandly as Severus took a seat. "You know if you hadn't recently threatened my life I'd have thought this was a friendly gesture."

"Who says that it cannot be," Severus said in the smooth baritone he had once reserved for the Dark Lord.

"We both know what this really is," Lucius answered with a tight lipped smile. "Early in the day, a public place to keep either of us from doing something we'd regret, but in a location not quite on the beaten path to keep our secrecy. This is most definitely going to be a thinly veiled threat."

"You are very suspicious ," Severus said thinly.

"And you've been spending too much time with Gryffindors if you think I don't see this for what it is," Lucius said with an actual smirk this time.

"Very well," Severus nodded. "I am here to ask something of you. However I have no intention of threatening you today, I think I made my point rather clearly in the lift a few weeks back."

"Do go on," Lucius said, effecting an air of annoyance and waving his hand dismissively. "I do not have all day."

"I wish you to utilize your influence at the ministry to remove the ban on Hermione's research," Severus said, holding up his hand when his old friends face went blank, a clear tell of his anger. "I am not asking you to fund her research, or even to support its dissemination amongst the public."

"What is it you wish me to say," he asked stiffly.

"I want you to say that your concern was blown out of proportion," Severus explained coolly. "I want you to put the idea in his head that there must be a way to have the best of both arguments."

"And what would that be?" Lucius snapped.

"I will deal with that argument," Severus said with a dismissive wave of his own. "Your job is to remove the threat of negative response from a large ministry financial supporter, so he might be more receptive to me presenting an alternative method."

"I do not wish to do such a thing without knowing what you plan to do," Lucius pointed out.

"You mistake the lack of overt threatening behavior this afternoon for safety," Severus said coolly. "I will still do whatever necessary to protect my wife and her research from you. I am simply offering you an opportunity to redeem yourself, and perhaps remove the threat of my anger from your head."

"Some days I wish I had never met you Severus Snape," Lucius grumbled as he stood from his seat. "You'll have to forgive me for leaving early, it appears I have forgotten an appointment I have at the ministry."

* * *

"Severus," Hermione called from the living room where she was attempting to read to a feisty Philip. "There is a floo call for you. From the minister."

The question had been clear in her voice, but she knew Severus wouldn't answer it right away. He strode into the room with a firm look locked in place on his face.

"To what do I owe the pleasure," Severus said with a brief nod of respect.

"You've requested a meeting with me every day this week, I now have an open time slot," Kingsley explained. "Would you like to come through to my office so we might speak?"

"Yes of course," Severus said, the stern look melting away as he turned to look at his wife. "Hermione, I'll be home as soon as I can."

"Okay," she said, meeting her eyes and making it clear that she would be demanding an explanation when he returned.


	31. Chapter 31

"**It's only after we've lost everything that we're free to do anything." **

**-Chuck Palahniuk**

* * *

"What was that about then?" Hermione asked conversationally when Severus emerged once more from the floo.

"I had a proposition to make the ministry in relation to your research," he explained just above a whisper when he saw that Philip was once again sleeping.

"What would that be?" Hermione asked, her curiosity peaked.

"Well I cannot convince them to remove your obliviation, nor can I convince them to release your research," Severus explained. "But I have convinced them to keep on a singularly trained healer at St. Mungos who is trained to deal with any case of cancer that may come through the doors."

"Who?" Hermione asked with a raised brow.

"Me," he said with a half smirk. "Each case that may arise will be treated with the utmost secrecy. Each patient will be required to take an unbreakable vow of secrecy, or they will be obliviated and made to believe they were treated for a particularly virulent strain of influenza. Other arrangements will have to be made when the time comes that I am unable to continue treating anyone, but for now the research will not be buried in a way that leave muggleborns to die a painful death or subject themselves to barbaric muggle medicine."

"How in the world did you manage that?" Hermione said, her eyes stinging with happy tears.

"Perseverance, and Slytherin practices," he said with a shrug. "Besides, it was about time I got a new job don't you think?"

"What will you be doing when there aren't treating someone, cancer isn't all that common in this community after all," Hermione questioned.

"I will occasionally brew for them, as their current staff is seriously lacking." Severus said as he pulled her into his arms. "But mostly I will be able to stay home. I want to look after Philip when you are at work. I don't want him being raised by a nanny or a house elf."

* * *

Hermione, no longer distracted by trying to track down the reason for her own obliviation, was able to focus her attention on memory research when she wasn't working directly with her staff. So far she hadn't made much progress in relation to bringing back her parents memories, but she was fully enveloped in that research once more.

It was different this time though, she didn't cry over her books. Her research wasn't a punishment, and it no longer took up all of her time. She devoted part of her day to it at work, broke up with frequent lunches with Harry, and at the end of the day she left it behind to spend time with her husband and her son. It was also different because it was no longer just about her parents. She had stumbled onto a line of intelligence that might allow her to unbury the memories that Lockhart had caused himself by using a broken wand, or even those that the Longbottoms were assumed to have lost to mental illness.

Her research was fulfilling, her staff was hardworking, and her family was always happy to see here when she came home from work. Hermione couldn't help but beam with happiness when her life was more perfect than she could ever dream of it being. Philip was growing rapidly now that he was two months old, and his eyes had already begun to take on an intelligent gleam, there was no denying that he was his parent's son.

* * *

People did not know how to deal with Severus when they saw him in public. For decades he had been the dower man that easily parted a crowd with his angry features, but now when he swept through the streets that lead him to St. Mungos hospital he could be seen with a smile on his face. Occasionally he was even seen wearing a Moby Wrap with a fidgeting infant in tow. Somehow people were still afraid of him, but now they weren't sure why. He didn't look frightful.

Severus Snape was a happy father, and a happy husband. When he had served the Dark Lord he had never dared to dream he could have this kind of happiness. He hadn't even bothered to dream of it when he was living in solitude in France. For more years than he wanted to count he didn't dare hope about anything, and yet now he was full of it.

Most of his hope was directed at his son. When the war had ended, and he had found himself a broken man, he had been certain that all hope and innocence was gone from the world. But he could see both of those things in his son's eyes. Philip was the picture of innocence and Severus wouldn't let a soul take that from him. He was almost grateful for the war he had fought in, because their victory meant that his son would never have to hurt like he had, like his mother once had.

And even though it went against what decades of life had ingrained in him, Severus began to believe in the idea of happily ever after. He had a job that made a difference, and so did his wife. They had a healthy happy son who loved them, and who they loved dearly. Hermione maintained a healthy relationship with her close friends and had even found a way to make peace with her ex-husband. Severus had found it in him to make friends with the Weasley parents, and the Potter family, and to be comfortable with it. Things had fallen into place and created a world where smiling took no effort, and he no longer cared who saw him do it.

* * *

The End


End file.
